Digital payment non-adoption among banked adults in Indonesia: assessing connectivity and the persistence of cash use

Many Indonesian bank account holders do not use digital payment despite growing account ownership and mobile internet penetration. This study asks how far two accounts of this gap, connectivity deficits and persistent cash habit, can be characterised in nationally representative data. We analyse Global Findex Database 2025 microdata for 564 Indonesian bank account holders using survey-weighted binary logistic regression and distributional tests on reported barriers. Although most non-adopters own a smartphone and use the internet, neither variable predicts adoption; only education and income quintile reach statistical significance. Among the 159 non-adopters answering the barrier item, 89.3% state habitual cash use as their primary reason, with a confidence interval overlapping no alternative category. The two explanations are not tested against each other: connectivity is assessed inferentially on the full sample, whereas the habit evidence is descriptive, drawn from non-adopters’ stated reasons rather than a direct measure of automaticity. A sensitivity analysis indicates the design could detect only connectivity effects considerably larger than those observed. The findings are therefore consistent with a behavioral-persistence reading of the gap without establishing it, and suggest that habit disruption warrants attention alongside continued infrastructure expansion in emerging markets.