Digital Payment Adoption among Higher Education Students in India: A Systematic Literature Review

Digital Payments has faced considerable adoption and expansion in the recent years. There has been considerable emphasis in terms of scholastic inquiry in understanding the acceptability of digital payment trends among general consumers as well as merchants. However, there has been limited quantitative as well as qualitative analysis in terms of understanding higher education student acceptability of digital payments, who are also using this technology to engage in everyday low-value transactions. This study aims to fill in that gap in terms of providing an understanding of available empirical literature in terms of the acceptability of digital payment trends among higher education students in the country. Using the PRISMA protocol the study includes various scholarly, peer-reviewed literature made available over the period of 2010–2024 that are retrieved through Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. It synthesizes the literature on digital payment adoption with a primary focus on higher education students in India, while drawing on broader empirical and theoretical studies to establish key determinants and research trends. The current review demonstrates that research in this domain is limited and regionally concentrated. Most of the available studies identify awareness, usage patterns, satisfaction levels, and behavioural perceptions without necessarily being guided by theory-driven models of adoption. The review also consolidates the scattered evidence on the subject over the different contexts and helps to improve the general understanding of student digital payment behaviour. It also outlines a research agenda to support more contextually grounded and theory-informed future studies.