Financial technology (fintech) has revolutionized the way people save, transfer, borrow and manage money, creating new opportunities for financial inclusion, especially for communities that have been excluded from formal banking systems. Nevertheless, access to fintech services alone does not ensure meaningful or sustained usage. Low-income households often face persistent barriers, including unreliable internet connectivity, low smartphone ownership, low digital literacy, high data and transaction costs, complex user interfaces, and fear of errors or fraud. These challenges often erode user confidence and discourage regular usage of digital financial services. In this paper, we explore the relationship between accessibility and user confidence for low-income households when using fintech services. It argues that accessibility is not only technical availability, but affordability, usability, language clarity, support systems and reliability. When users find it easy to access, understand and use fintech services, they develop greater confidence, which in turn promotes repeated usage and deeper financial inclusion. The study proposes a simple conceptual model that accessibility affects user confidence, which in turn motivates usage of fintech. Survey data from 154 low-income respondents indicate a strong relationship between higher accessibility and greater user confidence and use of fintech. The paper contributes to the discussion on digital financial inclusion by highlighting the importance of user confidence in the pathway from access to sustained engagement and offers practical lessons for fintech providers, policymakers and researchers.
Dwivedi et al. (Fri,) studied this question.