An Empirical Study of Barriers to Digital Financial Inclusion with the Mediating Effect of Awareness Among People

There are various factors responsible for restraining the growth of digital financial inclusion in India. The present paper examines the mediating effects of awareness of people on the relationship between Digital Financial Inclusion (DFI) and the barriers affecting it. For achieving the objectives of this study, a research model was developed to test the mediating effect of awareness on the relationship between different factors acting as barriers to DFI and DFI. The data for the study is collected from 776 respondents residing in the district of Puri, Odisha, India by framing a structured questionnaire, and structural equation modeling in partial least square (PLS) combined with bootstrap was applied to analyze and test the hypotheses of this study. Awareness as a mediator affects the relationship between the barrier and the DFI significantly. Awareness of operations of the digital platform, control, and redressal mechanism is of paramount importance as people are using financial services digitally. Moreover, the restraining barriers affect the DFI more in case of a lack of awareness among the users of digital services.