Access Convergence, Use Stratification: Digital Capabilities, Device Security, and Effective Financial Participation in Global Findex, 2011–2024

Financial inclusion has expanded rapidly, yet rising access does not necessarily translate into convergence in digital financial use. Using five Global Findex waves (2011–2024) and individual-level 2024 microdata, this study distinguishes account access from effective digital financial participation. Balanced-economy trends show account ownership rising from 53.0% in 2011 to 80.6% in 2024, while gender and income access gaps narrow. In contrast, income gaps in digital use remain large, and the richest–poorest gap in digital merchant payments increases from 15.4 to 18.7 percentage points between 2021 and 2024. Analysis of 62,480 phone-owning adults across 74 economies uses Findex-weighted logit models with economy fixed effects and economy-clustered inference. Internet use, basic messaging capability, and secure autonomous device control are independently associated with 6.9, 7.7, and 8.3 percentage-point higher probabilities of digital merchant payment. Digital mechanisms attenuate but do not eliminate education, income, rural, and gender gaps. Results are robust to wild-cluster bootstrap, CR2/Satterthwaite correction, alternative weighting, LMIC-only estimation, alternative security definitions, and leave-one-region-out tests. The findings indicate that expanding access alone is insufficient: effective digital participation remains stratified by capability, device control, and socioeconomic resources.