Understanding pragmatic meanings of fintech among vulnerable consumers in Bangladesh for enhanced customer experience management

Fintech's rapid evolution highlights a crucial gap: While its supply-side technical meaning is well researched, demand-side pragmatic meanings of fintech (PMF), especially for vulnerable consumers, are often overlooked. This oversight impacts equitable access to financial services. Current scholarship focuses on semantic meaning of fintech, leaving PMF largely unexplored. This study uses Social Ecology Theory (SET) and Social Identity Theory (SIT) to examine PMF among vulnerable consumers, recognizing how their social contexts and identities shape their fintech engagement. This study explores nine connotative fintech meanings: good, satisfactory, necessary, fast, likable, trustworthy, valuable, relevant, and easy. Data from 429 vulnerable consumers were analyzed using ANOVA and Tukey's Honest Significant Difference (HSD) to identify differences in PMF across social contexts and identities. Results reveal novel insights on social ecology, social identity, and fintech user experience. Different levels of English reading skills, numeracy skills, and age group identities among vulnerable consumers exhibited varying pragmatic meanings of fintech. However, gender identities did not show substantial differences in PMF among these consumers. These findings underscore the importance of understanding PMF for achieving financial inclusion. Differences in PMF across skill levels and age groups point to the need for tailored interventions. Financial service providers can use vulnerable consumers' context-dependent remarks to improve customer experience. Policymakers can leverage these insights to develop compliance guidelines that ensure equitable fintech access and benefit all societal segments.