The Impact of Financial Technology on The Income of Traditional Market Traders in Indonesia

Traditional markets play a pivotal role in shaping regional economic dynamics. The growing number of such markets ‎reflects their potential to generate employment, optimize financial resource management, enhance community welfare, ‎and provide broader opportunities that collectively address unemployment and poverty challenges. Functioning as a critical component of the informal sector, traditional markets serve as an adaptive mechanism for labor absorption, particularly during economic crises. In Indonesia, the national economy remains highly reliant on trade activities facilitated by traditional markets across diverse regions. However, recent advances in financial ‎technology (fintech) have transformed how these markets operate, particularly in enabling digital transactions, expand-‎ing market reach, and reshaping traders’ income generation processes. This study examines the moderating role of ‎fintech adoption in influencing the relationship between trading hours, product types, and market location on the income ‎of traditional market traders in Indonesia. Employing a mixed-method design that integrates quantitative and qualitative approaches, the quantitative model tested via Smart PLS 3.0 explicitly incorporates fintech adoption as a moderating construct, while qualitative data analyzed using NVivo 12 provide contextual depth. Field research was conducted ‎across various traditional markets in Indonesia, using interviews and an accidental sampling technique. The findings ‎provide robust empirical evidence that fintech adoption not only directly affects traders’ income but also strengthens the ‎influence of operational factors such as trading hours and market access, thereby demonstrating its pivotal role as an ‎enabler of inclusive digital transformation in traditional markets‎.