Invisible Costs of Digitization: Technostress in Indore’s Financial Sector

The rapid digitization of Indian banking and financial services has improved speed, reach and transparency, yet it has also introduced a less visible cost: technology-induced stress among the employees who keep these systems running. This study examines the level, sources and consequences of technostress among employees of the financial sector in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Drawing on the technostress creators framework and the job demands–resources perspective, a structured questionnaire was administered to 384 employees drawn from public sector banks, private sector banks, non-banking financial companies and insurance firms, and co-operative and small finance banks. The five technostress creators showed good reliability (α = .848 to .881) and convergent validity. Techno-overload was the strongest stressor (M = 3.44), followed by techno-uncertainty and techno-invasion, and one in four respondents reported a high level of overall technostress. Multiple regression showed that techno-overload, techno-invasion, techno-insecurity and techno-complexity significantly predicted work exhaustion (R2 = .385), whereas techno-uncertainty did not. Overall technostress reduced job satisfaction and perceived productivity, with work exhaustion carrying about half of its effect on job satisfaction. Organisational technical support weakened the link between technostress and exhaustion. Technostress also differed across sub-sectors and rose steadily with daily hours spent on digital systems. The findings suggest that digital transformation in financial institutions should be budgeted not only in terms of hardware and software but also in terms of the human strain it creates, and that targeted support, sensible workload design and clear communication about technology change can reduce these invisible costs.