Comparative Analysis of Urban and Rural Consumer Preferences Toward Digital Lending Platforms in Emerging Financial Markets

Abstract - The expansion of the digital financial services are transforming the consumer lending across the developing
economies. The present study is examining the differences in the consumer preferences towards the digital lending platforms between the urban and the rural populations. The study is addressing the problem of uneven adoption of the digital lending services across the geographic segments. The research is applying a Comparative Survey Research Method, which is considered collecting primary data from the consumers in both the urban and the rural locations. Structuring questionnaires are gathering responses that is relating to awareness, accessibility, trust,
perceiving usefulness, and borrowing behavior. Statistical
analysis, which is including descriptive statistics and comparative analysis, is examining the variations between the two consumer groups. The findings are showing that urban consumers in achieving an average Awareness Index of 4.6, Accessibility Index of 4.5, and Trust Index of 4.5, whereas rural consumers show lower but improving adoption levels with a Awareness Index of 2.9, Accessibility Index of 3.0, and Trust Index of 3.1. The proposed method is performing better than the existing models by 0.4–0.6 points across all the metrics, i.e., a more accurate representation of consumer preferences and inclusive evaluation of the digital
lending adoption.
Keywords - Digital lending, consumer preference, urban
consumers, rural consumers, financial technology