Interpreting participation in sharia-compliant fintech markets: User narratives of engagement, uncertainty, and socio-economic meaning

Purpose This study aims to examine how users interpret and sustain participation in Sharia-compliant fintech markets within digitally mediated financial environments and how governance signals, conditional acceptance and socio-economic meaning shape engagement, risk negotiation and trust. Design/methodology/approach Adopting an interpretivist qualitative design, this study analyses 43,994 user-generated reviews from seven Sharia-compliant fintech platforms in Indonesia. Data were collected from the Google Play Store and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis supported by ATLAS.ti through iterative coding, pattern development and thematic abstraction. Findings Participation is constructed through an evolving process of sensemaking rather than discrete behavioural decisions. Governance signals enable users to infer institutional credibility through platform interactions, while conditional acceptance explains how continued participation is sustained despite recognised uncertainty. Socio-economic meaning reinforces engagement by embedding financial participation within broader contexts of financial inclusion, ethical legitimacy and household well-being. Originality/value This study advances behavioural finance and fintech research by conceptualising governance signals and conditional acceptance as interpretive mechanisms through which users construct institutional credibility and negotiate uncertainty. In doing so, it extends adoption-orientated perspectives by explaining financial participation as a dynamic process of interpretation, institutional evaluation and meaning construction within Sharia-compliant digital financial markets.