Advances in explainable artificial intelligence (xAI) in Finance

Explainable Artificial Intelligence addresses the black box problem associated with AI, aiming to promote greater transparency, traceability, and trust in applications of AI. xAI is becoming a vital element in finance and economics in fields like risk management, credit decisions, and regulatory compliance. The need for xAI arises from the challenges in understanding, trusting, and communicating AI-generated results. While some argue for the adoption of inherently interpretable models, others critique popular xAI methods. This special issue explores xAI’s role in finance and its advances, focusing on its implications for future research, practice, and policy in FinTech.