This study offers an integrative and systematic examination of the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic, digital payment systems, and financial inclusion. To achieve this, it adopts a dual methodological approach that combines a PRISMA 2020-based systematic literature review with bibliometric analysis. The analysis covers a set of peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2020 and 2025, using bibliometric mapping to explore the conceptual structure of the field, its main thematic clusters, and its temporal evolution. The findings indicate that COVID-19 acted as an external shock that accelerated the adoption of digital payment technologies. However, this acceleration did not automatically or uniformly lead to sustainable financial inclusion. Instead, digital payments emerge in the literature as an intermediate pathway linking the pandemic to financial inclusion outcomes under specific conditions. The strength and direction of this process depend on factors such as structural readiness, regulatory quality, digital infrastructure, levels of trust, and financial and digital literacy. Bibliometric results reveal strong conceptual convergence around three core themes—COVID-19, Digital Payments, and Financial Inclusion—forming a cohesive knowledge structure. Over time, the literature progresses from describing the crisis itself, to analyzing digital operational responses and finally to assessing longer-term inclusion and development outcomes. Overall, the study clarifies the interactive nature of the digital payments–financial inclusion nexus and proposes an integrative interpretive framework that can guide future research and support the design of more inclusive and resilient digital financial policies in post-crisis contexts.
Shahen et al. (Mon,) studied this question.