The Role of Financial Digitization in Achieving Financial Discipline – Experiences of Selected Countries with the Possibility of Benefiting from Them in Iraq
A thesis submitted to
The Council of the College of Administration and Economics -University of Karbala, as part of the requirements for obtaining a PhD in Economic Sciences
Submitted by the student
Yassin Nadeb Ali Khalil Al-Sultany
Under the supervision of
Professor Dr. Mohammed Hussein Kazim Al-Jubouri
Abstract
Financial discipline is one of the most important goals that financial policy seeks to achieve through various means it possesses. The implementation and success of these policies requires the government to have sufficient information about the sources of funds, their spending destinations, and methods of implementation, which requires a lot of time and cost through traditional methods that include a lot of waste and extravagance in addition to financial and administrative corruption. After the digital revolution and the widespread spread of digital technologies that accompanied it, many countries have moved to digitize their public finances to facilitate the implementation of financial control policies and achieve effective results in this field. The research presents the concept of financial digitization and its importance from an economic perspective and the digital systems that use it in addition to the requirements for achieving it and the obstacles that hinder it. The research also presents the concept of financial control, its mechanisms, the factors that help achieve it, and the financial rules that govern the financial control policy. The research also presents the historical development of the path of financial digitization in each of the sample countries, the reality of financial digitization and financial control in Iraq and in the sample countries (UAE, Canada) and the actual levels reached by each country, its global and regional ranking according to its digital development and the evaluation obtained by each country, and a statement of the role played by financial digitization in achieving financial control through the results presented by the financial digitization indicators, financial control indicators, and the extent of the success of these policies in each country. The research concluded with a set of conclusions, the most important of which was the existence of a large digital gap separating Iraq and the selected sample countries in the field of public finance digitization, as well as the positive and effective role of financial digitization technologies in achieving financial control in the sample countries, which was consistent with the standard results obtained in those countries, which confirmed the existence of a long-term positive relationship between financial digitization and financial control. The research also concluded with a set of recommendations, the most important of which is the need for the Iraqi government to develop a comprehensive plan that includes all the requirements for digital transformation in public finances , to be implemented in annual stages with financial and legal support , and to expand the scope of digital inclusion to deliver financial digital services to the greatest extent possible.
