Purpose:

This research highlights how behavioural, demographic and perceptual aspects affect bottom of the pyramid (BoP) customers’ intentions to use digital banking services in India. To comprehend how constructs such as perceived usefulness, ease of use, behavioural control, trust, risk perception and fees/charges shape attitudes and eventually determine digital banking adoption intention within economically underprivileged banking consumers is the main objective of this study. It acknowledges the critical value that digital financial inclusion has in promoting the use for those who have low incomes.

Methodology:

The research follows an analytical structure that is based on a quantitative research methodology and structural equation modelling. To collect accurate data, standardized questionnaires were given to an accurate representation of 504 BoP customers from different parts of India. A 5-point Likert scale was applied to test 34 items that covered 8 important variables connected to adopting digital banking. The constructs’ resilience was significantly checked by thorough validity and reliability testing, which covers exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived behavioural control (PBC), perceived risk (PR), perceived trust (PT), fees/charges (FC), attitude towards digital banking (ATDB) and intention to adopt digital banking were all assessed directly and through mediation by the hypothesis testing conducted within the SEM framework.

Findings:

The study’s findings indicated that each of the seven proposed hypotheses is positive and statistically significant. In particular, ATDB are significantly improved by PU (β = 0.183, p < .001), PBC (β = 0.157, p = .004), PEOU (β = 0.198, p < .001), PR (β = 0.162, p = .002), FC (β = 0.122, p < .001) and PT (β = 0.175, p < .001). Among BoP users, this positive attitude significantly predicts their propensity to utilize digital banking (β = 0.543, p < .001). However, although PR usually prevents adoption, the positive effect found indicates that BoP consumers have a positive ATDB when problems are seen as controllable or exceeded by benefits, with adequate transparency and trust. The framework used has an outstanding goodness-of-fit indices (CMINdf = 1.737, RMSEA = 0.038, CFI = 0.961) which highlight the findings’ validity and dependability.

Originality:

This research is focused on India’s BoP customers, who are among the most economically disadvantaged and technologically disadvantaged consumers, in contrast to the majority of earlier studies that focus on modern cities or higher-income consumers. The research improves the knowledge of digital banking adoption among low-income consumers by combining several behavioural, demographic and perceptual aspects into a strong SEM framework and validating extensive scales with good reliability (Cronbach’s α > 0.75 across constructs). Conventional assumptions are further challenged by the positive correlation between PR and attitude, pointing to complex dynamics in the relationship between risk and trust for BoP consumers. This unique addition speeds up the adoption of digital banking in lower-middle income nations by offering a useful scholarly and academic guide.