Digital Payments and Financial Inclusion: An Integrative Literature Review and Access-to-Use Framework

Abstract

Digital payments are often viewed as a direct route to financial inclusion, but the evidence is more conditional. This review examines how payment technologies can move individuals from formal access toward sustained and meaningful use of financial services. Drawing on research on mobile money, recent systematic reviews, the World Bank's Global Findex Database, and quasi-experimental evidence from Kenya, it distinguishes digital payments from mobile money and descriptive cross-country evidence from stronger causal evidence. Five issues are examined: access to financial infrastructure, adoption where conventional banking networks are weak, distributional effects, the use of payment accounts for other financial services, and the gap between account ownership and effective inclusion. The evidence supports an access-to-use interpretation. Digital payments can reduce distance and transaction costs and encourage account use. In Kenya, mobile money access has also been linked to stronger risk sharing, saving, occupational change, and poverty reduction. However, these effects cannot be generalized globally. Global Findex data show broad growth in account ownership and digital payment use but are primarily descriptive and cannot establish causality. The review therefore proposes assessing financial inclusion through three stages: formal access, active use, and effective financial benefit. Future research should distinguish payment technologies, improve measurement of independent use and welfare, and apply stronger identification strategies.