Online payments: 84% of female entrepreneurs, 54% rural women earners now use UPI, finds study—Here's what they spent on

DBS Bank India's report titled The Digital Opportunity: Access, Adoption and Trust’ has found that over half of rural women earners in India now use unified payments interface (UPI) for financial transactions.

Reflecting perspectives of female entrepreneurs, High-Net-Worth (HNW) women and rural women earners, the study “focuses on how digitalisation is shaping the financial journeys of women across different life stages, income segments and geographies,” the release stated.

“The findings of this report highlight an encouraging shift in the way women are engaging with their finances. Among female entrepreneurs, digital tools are becoming increasingly integral to business management, supporting everything from payments, credit and payroll to customer acquisition and future planning,” said Divyesh Dalal, MD and Country Head, Global Transaction Services, Corporate Banking, Financial Institutions and SMEs.

The report, part of the bank's ‘Women and Finance’ series, surveyed 1,342 women across north (23%), south (36%), east (14%) and west (27%) India, and explored how female earners in the country engage with digital payments, banking, credit and investment platforms, it added.

As per the findings of the study, female entrepreneurs are the most active users of digital financial tools and platforms among all cohorts. It also found that female entrepreneurs are increasingly engaging with a wider ecosystem of digital financial tools and platforms beyond banking and payments. The breakdown is as follows:

The figures reflect a “growing comfort and proficiency in using digital investment tools, driven by the convenience and accessibility they offer,” it said. Dalal added that sustaining this momentum requires more than traditional banking, “to create connected ecosystems that help entrepreneurs at every stage of their business journey.”

The report also ananlysed and identified key business expenditure areas among female entrepreneurs and rural women earners, alongside personal spending among HNW women.

DBS Bank has been in India for over 30 years, with its first office opening in Mumbai in 1994. It is the first among the large foreign banks in India to start operating as a wholly owned, locally incorporated subsidiary of a global bank. The lender provides banking services for large, medium, and small enterprises and individual consumers in India with presence in 19 states.

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Jocelyn Fernandes is a journalist and editor with nearly 13 years of experience covering the business, corporate, economy and markets beats in news.<br> As chief content producer for around three years at Livemint (Hindustan Times), Jocelyn publishes breaking stories, explainers, features and live blogs on a range of business and economy topics, including the Budget, corporate developments, stock markets, income tax, money and personal finance, cryptocurrency, government policy, impact of US tariffs, international developments and more.<br> Jocelyn's writing philosophy is focused on delivering news in an accurate and accessible format for readers. She thus focuses her news coverage on explainers and FAQs in order to breakdown business, corporate, economic, and policy topics that are of importance to everyday readers.<br> She holds a Bachelors in Mass Media (BMM) and Post Graduate Diploma (PGD) in Journalism and Communication and has previously written for online business and markets news site Moneycontrol (Network18), Business-to-business (B2B) trade publications — the industry magazines Power Today and Solar Today (ASAPP Media), and the national news agency United News of India (UNI).<br> Outside of work, Jocelyn keeps up-to-date with local and international news, enjoys reading fiction books, novels...