Navigating the Nexus: Women Entrepreneurs Digital Financial Literacy, Perceived Risks and the Technology Acceptance in P2P Lending Platforms

The emergence of fintech platforms is transforming how individuals access financial services. Boosting women’s financial literacy and digital competencies will contribute in nations economic growth. However, SMEs women entrepreneurs struggle with financial literacy and due to lack of digital financial capability and perceived risk, fail to adopt fintech tools to make informed financial decisions. Against this back ground the study aims to inspect the impact of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on the usage amongst women towards adoption of peer-to-peer lending platforms in India with digital financial literacy and perceived risk as antecedents affecting the endogenous variables. Primary data through online questionnaire was collected from the women in SMEs. SmartPLS 4.0 was employed to analyse the data and a comprehensive model was designed and tested using structural equation method. The statistical output highlights the digital financial literacy significantly impacts women entrepreneurs’ usage intent of P2P lending platforms with perceived risk having least influence. The study provides valuable insights to various stake holders of P2P lending platforms to understand the apprehensions of women entrepreneurs in availing credit from P2P platforms and device strategies to combat difficulties.