Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

@article{207168,
        author = {CA Veena Suhas Narkhede and Asst Prof. Shripad karjatkar},
        title = {The Impact of Digital Banking and Accounting Technologies on the Financial Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {2},
        pages = {4214-4228},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=207168},
        abstract = {Digital banking and accounting technologies are increasingly reshaping the financial architecture of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Digital payment systems, mobile and internet banking, automated collections, digital credit, cloud accounting, accounting information systems, bank feeds, e-invoicing and analytics may reduce transaction costs, improve cash-flow visibility, strengthen financial reporting and widen access to formal finance. India provides a significant setting for this inquiry because payment digitalisation has expanded rapidly, regulatory reporting is increasingly electronic, and the revised MSME framework provides enterprises greater room to scale. The Reserve Bank of India Digital Payments Index increased from 100 in March 2018 to 493.22 in March 2025, while UPI monthly volumes increased from 13.44 billion transactions in March 2024 to 18.30 billion in March 2025 and 23.20 billion in May 2026. This paper examines how digital banking and accounting technologies may influence profitability, sales growth, liquidity, working-capital efficiency and return measures of SMEs. It follows a descriptive and analytical research design based on official statistics, regulatory documents and peer-reviewed empirical studies. Five hypotheses are developed concerning the direct effect of digital banking, the direct effect of accounting technology, their complementary interaction, the mediating roles of financial-information quality and finance access, and the moderating roles of digital capability and cybersecurity readiness. A survey-ready empirical protocol is proposed for approximately 400 SMEs using reliability and validity assessment, correlation, hierarchical regression, interaction analysis, bootstrapped mediation, moderation and robustness checks. Since no original respondent dataset was supplied, the paper does not invent p-values or field results; instead, it provides a complete hypothesis-testing framework and a preliminary evidence assessment. Existing evidence is broadly consistent with positive direct and complementary effects, but the gains depend on system integration, staff capability, data quality, governance and secure adoption.},
        keywords = {Digital Banking, Accounting Technology, Cloud Accounting, Accounting Information Systems, UPI, SMEs, Financial Performance, Financial Information Quality, Access to Finance, Hypothesis Testing},
        month = {July},
        }