FinTech and Financial Inclusion: The Role of Digital Payments in Emerging Markets

Abstract- For emerging markets in general and India’s in particular, this study reviews the impact of digital payments on financial inclusion. Researchers learned what encourages the adoption of digital payment systems like Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm by giving a questionnaire to over 100 people and investigating how and why they use such systems. According to the results, younger people living in cities are the main people who use these services often. Even with wide acceptance, there are still cybersecurity issues, not enough understanding of money matters, and people are not aware of integrated financial tools, which holds back the sector. From the study’s findings, it is clear that targeting policy, adding educational resources, and beefing up security will improve digital financial inclusion and strengthen the move to a cashless system in emerging markets. Keywords- Digital payments, Financial inclusion, Cashless economy, Emerging markets, User behaviour, Financial literacy, Cybersecurity.