Cashless Society and the Informal Economy: Assessing the Potential of Policy-Driven Digital Payment Ecosystems for Sustainable Transformation (International Journal of Accounting, Finance and Business)

Summary

• The study conducted a bibliometric mapping of 97 peer-reviewed Scopus articles published between 2010 and 2025 to evaluate policy-driven digital payment adoption in informal economies.p.1
• From an initial retrieval of 376 papers, 279 were excluded during PRISMA screening, resulting in a final analytical dataset of 97 studies.p.3
• Annual output grew from 10 articles in 2023 to 18 in 2024, reaching a peak of 49 articles in 2025.p.5
• The increase in publications between 2024 and 2025 represented a growth rate of 172%, the highest recorded in the dataset.p.5
• The domain exhibited a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41.8% from 2019 to 2025.p.5
• A total of 81% of all included studies were published between 2023 and 2025.p.5
• India was the most productive country in the field, contributing 12 articles to the literature.p.6

Key insights

1. Bibliometric analysis of 97 articles revealed four primary thematic clusters: financial inclusion and empowerment, technology adoption, informal entrepreneurship, and digital financial literacy and well-being.p.1
2. The research pipeline expanded rapidly after 2023, achieving a 41.8% CAGR between 2019 and 2025.p.5
3. Publication volume peaked in 2025 with 49 articles, reflecting an annual growth rate of 172% over 2024.p.5
4. Research on informal sector digital payments is heavily concentrated in the Global South, with India leading at 12 publications.p.6
5. Studies by Uduji et al. (2019) and Mishra et al. (2022) are the most highly cited in the domain, with 51 citations each.p.7
6. The literature is transitioning from individual adoption models like TAM toward ecosystem-level, capability-building, and long-term financial well-being perspectives.p.8
7. Empirical methodology in this field remains heavily reliant on cross-sectional quantitative surveys analyzed via PLS-SEM or regression models.p.13