IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM) e-ISSN: 2278-487X, p-ISSN: 2319-7668. Volume 22, Issue 5. Ser. II (May. 2020), PP 18-26 www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/487X-2205021826 www.iosrjournals.org 18 | Page Digital Financial Inclusion: A Catalyst for Socio-Economic Transformation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Kerala Dr. Tejil Thomas 1 & Suresh T.S. 2 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce, St. Thomas College Palai, Kerala. 2 Ph. D Research Scholar, Department of Commerce, St Thomas College Palai, Kerala. Abstract The Digital financial innovations play a vital role in the development of Indian financial ecosystem and in the inclusion of marginalized communities to the formal financial structure. The development of innovative customer friendly technologies encourages the customers to use the digital banking techniques, which will make the banking activities easier. The adoption of new technology is inevitable in delivering right financial products and services to people of a state in an equitable, responsible and sustainable mode. Digital Financial Inclusion impetus socio-economic transformation of people by providing them with equal opportunities to access all financial products and services of their choice. Social discrimination, socio-cultural ostracism, and the unacceptable attitude of banking officials which make difficulty in financial inclusion can, to some extent, be addressed through digital financial innovations. The reliance on digital financial technologies is bringing people closer to financial products and services, which ultimately leads to digital financial inclusion. This digital financial inclusion contributes the socio-economic transformation of the community. Parametric tests are applied for testing the hypotheses. Structural Equation Modelling have been used for testing the validity and fit of the socio-economic transformation model developed. Keywords: Cashless Economy, Digital Financial Inclusion, Digital India, Financial Innovations, Financial Literacy, Socio-economic transformation --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 27-04-2020 Date of Acceptance: 10-05-2020 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Introduction The socio-economic growth of a nation is associated with the socio-economic transformation to the lives of their citizens. The socio-economic transformation is a product of many factors among them financial inclusion plays a strategic role (Inoue, 2018). Financial inclusion means the delivery of financial services at reasonable costs to underprivileged and low-income segments of society, whereas financial exclusion refers to the non-availability of financial services. The concept financial inclusion refers to all types of financial services, including credit, savings and payment services provided by the formal financial institutions. (Charles Akol Malinga et al., 2018). The access to a transaction account is considered as a first step towards the broader concept of financial inclusion since it allows people to store money, send and receive payments. The success of financial inclusion is measured on the basis of the availability of various financial services to various sections of the society and its effective utilization by whatever means. (Nedungadi, Rajani Menon, & Georg Gutjahr, 2018). The development of digital technologies in the financial sector and the increased use of mobile phones and internet technologies, has facilitated more access to financial services to unserved and hard-to-reach populations at low cost and risk. In the recent years the Union Government has introduced ‘Digital India’ initiative with an objective to transform India into a digitally empowered Cashless economy. The emergence of ‘Digital Financial Services’ in India ties these developments in the digital and financial spaces together and represents an energetic period of innovation for the industry ( Thomas and Hedrick-Wong 2019). It is clear that financial inclusion is necessary because a nation can only achieve an overall economic development only if they were able to achieve an inclusive growth in all sections of the society. This can be attained only by add up the rate of inclusion of poorer section of the society to the formal financial channel to make a transformation to their lives. (Rastogi and Ragabiruntha E 2018). Socio economic transformation refers to the social and economic upliftment incurred to the lives of citizens in the nation. Normally every nation will face some difficulties in upgrading the lives of economically backward and marginalized group to main strata. The government can attain a comprehensive development of a nation only if the entire segments of the society is under a formal financial structure. Then only the government can plan and implement comprehensive development plans. The advance of digital technologies adds this inclusion and transformation rate. Indian financial services landscape is now undergoing