Abstract
Digital payment systems increasingly combine card networks, mobile interfaces, contactless technologies, automated risk controls and data-driven services. In this environment, consumers’ awareness of financial technology may shape how they perceive the advantages of digital payment and whether they intend to adopt or increase their use. This study examines the relationship between FinTech awareness and adoption intention toward Mastercard-enabled digital payment solutions in Bangladesh, drawing on Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory and UTAUT2. The analysis draws on a structured survey of 385 complete responses. The focal model operationalizes FinTech Awareness, Relative Advantage, Performance Expectancy and Cashless Payment Intention. AI-enabled payment services are treated as the broader technological context because AI-specific indicators were not sufficiently defined for inferential analysis. Construct scores were analyzed using measurement diagnostics, standardized regression paths, 10,000-resample bootstrap inference, mediation analysis, collinearity assessment and 10-fold out-of-sample prediction. FinTech awareness was positively associated with relative advantage (β = .272, p < .001). FinTech awareness (β = .178, p < .001), relative advantage (β = .197, p < .001) and performance expectancy (β = .209, p < .001) were each positively associated with cashless-payment intention. The indirect effect of awareness through relative advantage was .048, with a 95% bootstrap confidence interval [.023, .078]. The model explained 18.7% of the variance in adoption intention. Composite reliability was .72 or higher for all constructs, but Cronbach’s alpha was low (.43–.51) and average variance extracted was at or below .50 for performance expectancy and cashless-payment intention; the structural evidence should therefore be interpreted as preliminary, and measurement refinement remains necessary. The findings provide a Bangladesh-specific account of how awareness, perceived advantage and expected performance jointly relate to intention to adopt Mastercard-enabled digital payments.