CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS AND DIGITAL BANKING ADOPTION: EXPLORING THE MODERATING IMPACT OF DIGITAL LITERACY

Abstract

Fintech adoption in digital banking is important for enhancing efficiency, security, and customer experience. Therefore, the study empirically investigated the influence of cyber security awareness, facilitating conditions, personal innovativeness, and access to finance on fintech adoption through increasing customer trust towards digital banking. The role of digital literacy as a moderator was also tested. Quantitative data through a self-administered questionnaire was collected from 390 Fintech banking users. A cross-sectional research design is used in data collection employing a convenient sampling technique. Both SPSS and Smart PLS software were used to test the study hypothesis. The PLS-SEM findings indicate cyber security awareness, personal innovativeness, facilitating conditions, and access to finance have positive and significant impacts on digital payment trust. Further trust also positively and significantly influences digital banking adoption in fintech. Digital literacy also significantly moderated cyber security awareness, personal innovativeness, facilitating conditions, access to finance, and trust. The findings contribute to the literature by establishing a framework that links cyber security awareness, personal innovativeness, facilitating conditions, and access to finance as critical factors influencing digital banking trust in digital finance contexts. Practical implications indicate that practitioners and policymakers should focus on enhancing cyber security awareness and facilitating conditions to build trust in digital banking systems because these factors significantly influence to user adoption and could lead to increased financial inclusion and efficiency in fintech services. This study uniquely highlights the moderating effect of digital literacy on the relationship of cyber security awareness, personal innovativeness, facilitating conditions, access to finance, and trust which is providing new insights into the dynamics of fintech adoption.