Purpose – The research objective is to perform a bibliometric analysis on 662 Scopus database documents ‎published between 1986 and 2022.‎ Design/methodology/approach – In the current study, citation metrics and analysis were performed using ‎Harzing's Publish or Perish, Tableau Public, Biblioshiny - Rstudio, and Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer for ‎frequency analysis and data visualization.‎ Findings - The results have been presented in graphs, tables, and knowledge maps on the historical patterns, growth, ‎and prospects utilizing co-occurrence, co-authorship, and co-citation analysis using the methodologies above. This ‎study has identified famous writers, publications, countries, academic institutions, and potential career options. ‎The results show that the majority of publications are from China (114, 17.22%), followed by Turkey (65, 9.81%) ‎and Malaysia (9.36%). The University of South Africa (18, 2.71%) in South Africa is the academic institution with ‎the highest productivity. This study offered fresh directions for future research on financial innovation and ‎economic expansion, including green finance, FinTech and financial digitization, sustainability, and green ‎investment.‎ Originality/value – This study is the first to examine papers on financial development and economic growth in ‎the Scopus science database, to the best of the author's knowledge.‎