Public Perception of Digital Financial Service: The Preliminary Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

The low level of community access to formal financial institutions needs a policy breakthrough to create a more inclusive financial system.  In order to meet the needs of inclusive finance, Bank Indonesia launched a Digital Financial Services (DFS)which in its development, is also synergized for the benefit of Direct Cash Assitance  distribution program by the government. This study aims to determine the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived risk of the unbanked community towards the presence of DFS and to analyze the difference of perception based on demographic factors.  This study involves respondents that are included in unbanked category and received Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) who live in three areas of the Central Java. The study results showed that the majority of unbanked community had positive perceptions on DFS. In addition, there were no differences in those perceptions based on demographic factors. The finding of a positive perception is expected to facilitate the acceleration program of DFS means implementation for non-cash transactions, particularly among the unbanked community.