The complexities of trust in digital finance

Anette Broløs, Erin B. Taylor, Jillet Sarah Sam and Shriram Venkatraman

Chapter 4 in Digital Human Finance, 2026, pp 60-75 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Trust is an essential part of human interaction. It is personal and at the same time deeply embedded in economic, cultural and networked social practices. The digitalization of society and finance is changing trusted financial environments as well as perceptions of financial trust. We present perspectives on institutional trust in digital environments and discuss the relationship between financial trustors and trustees. We describe how this is closely linked to understandings of technology adoption. We discuss how access to digital tools and information helps financial users develop P2P solutions that can circumvent financial intermediaries. DeFi offers digital intermediation and promises ‘trustless’ solutions. Our analysis leads to two main insights. First, digital trust is not a well-defined concept – and we may simply be witnessing a new version of financial trust with different intermediation. Second, we need more research into human perceptions of trust in digital finance.

Keywords: Digital Trust; UTAUT; Digital Communities; DeFi; Financial Environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035344925
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