How to improve the efficiency of green development? The role of digital finance

•GTFP is used to measure the high-quality development of economy, opening the "black box".•The mechanisms include green innovation and alleviating resource mismatch.•The policy implications are crucial for improving urban green governance and high-quality development. This paper investigates the relationship between digital finance and the green development efficiency based on 283 prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2019. The research results show that: (1) The development of digital finance can significantly enhance regional green development efficiency. (2) Digital finance enhances green development efficiency through innovation effect and allocation effect. (3) Heterogeneity test show that digital finance has a more significant effect on green governance in the central region and regions with lower levels of digitalization.