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This research aims to determine the factors that can affect financial literacy in Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), especially regarding loans and budgeting. Data are obtained using a survey of owners or managers of MSMEs, which is then processed using multiple regression. This research contributes toward a deeper understanding of MSMEs’ financial literacy determinants, specifically regarding loans and budgeting, in a pandemic situation that differs from ordinary circumstances and encourages many financial activities to utilize technology. The research results indicate the role of Financial Education, Money Attitude, and Financial Socialization Agents in determining MSMEs’ financial knowledge and skills regarding loans and budgets.

Using exploratory research, this study analysed some of the factors that have an impact on the level of financial literacy of undergraduate students studying to become chartered accountants. The study utilised an internationally developed instrument to measure financial literacy. It investigated whether some of the factors that were identified in international studies also influence the financial literacy levels of chartered accountant students in South Africa. In line with previous international studies, the study concluded that gender, age, language, race and income levels do have an impact on the level of financial literacy. This information should enable chartered accountant firms to identify trainee accountants who might require special training in the field of financial literacy.

Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are important assets for the economic sustainability in Indonesia. The sector has an important role in encouraging economic growth and supporting the creation of new jobs for the Indonesian population. When Indonesia was facing the economic crisis situation, MSMEs remained and stood strong. In fact, the data shows an increasing number of MSMEs. Despite their contribution to Indonesia’s economies, it turns out that MSMEs still have very basic problems. The results of previous research indicate that MSMEs still face various problems related to financial management caused by a lack of managerial and financial knowledge. There are many cash flow problems faced by MSMEs that are in line with the lack of knowledge and understanding of financial management by MSME actors. This indicates that owners or managers of MSMEs need to have sufficient financial literacy. Understanding of financial literacy is paramount for business actors and can be utilized for instance to prepare financial statements that can be used to obtain funds. In the context of MSMEs, owners or managers need to have financial knowledge related to financial access and also for a company business to grow well. This study aims to analyze the financial literacy of owners or managers and its impact on access to finance and growth of the MSMEs in West Java, Indonesia. The samples of this research are MSMEs’ owners or managers of various business types. Data concerning Financial Literacy, Access to Finance, and Growth of the MSMEs are obtained through questionnaires. The obtained data were processed using Structural Equation Modeling to ensure the relationships between research variables. The results of the research analysis show depictions of the financial literacy, financial access, and growth of MSMEs in West Java, Indonesia. The results of the study support the previous studies and theories that Financial Literacy has a positive effect on Access to Finance and Growth of MSMEs, and Access to Finance also has a positive effect on Growth of MSMEs.

With the rapid development of the economy in China, the wealth of residents has continued to increase, and most families have gradually been aware of the importance of commercial insurance. The family purchase of insurance in China was still not optimistic. Many scholars focus on wealth allocation, but the attention to the commercial insurance market was still less. Based on previous research studies, this study aims to investigate the impact of education and financial literacy on the commercial insurance purchase in China.

China Household Finance Survey data was used to investigate the purchase of commercial insurance in Mainland Chinese families. Factor analysis was used to construct financial literacy, and the education data were combined to analyze the commercial insurance purchase using the Probit model and the Tobit model. Finally, the contributions of education and financial literacy to commercial insurance purchases were analyzed.

Both education and financial literacy exerted a positive impact on the purchase of commercial insurance in China. Individual characteristics such as gender, age, marital status, risk attitude, purchase of social insurance and consultation with a financial advisor possessed significant effects; household factors like household size and assets, macro factors such as the density of financial institutions and the density of financial industry staff, and regional factors as local unemployment rate excreted influences on the commercial insurance purchase.

Based on the current economic development in China, this study investigated and expressed opinions on the public and insurance companies regarding commercial insurance purchases. It accentuated financial literacy and education as factors that facilitated commercial insurance development.

Currently, consumers of financial products and services have become more vulnerable to predatory financial institutions, especially in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, financial consumers like the persons with disabilities (PWDs) should be equipped with knowledge and skills to help them to evaluate complex financial products on offer in financial markets, especially in developing countries to avoid being victims of fraudulent lending. The purpose of this study is to establish whether customized financial literacy mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

SmartPLS 4.0 was used to construct the measurement and structural equation models to test whether customized financial literacy significantly mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

The results revealed a partial mediating effect of customized financial literacy in the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic. Conducting customized financial literacy increases financial consumer protection by 12 percentage points to promote financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

This study focused only on customized financial literacy and financial consumer protection to promote universal financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs post Covid-19 pandemic. Future studies may use data collected from other vulnerable groups amongst the unbanked population in developing countries, Uganda inclusive. In addition, this study also collected only quantitative data from the selected population. Further studies can be conducted using key informant interviews and focused group discussion to get the perceptions of the PWDs on being protected from exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions.

The findings from this study can help policymakers in developing countries like Uganda to revise the existing consumer protection law to include strong clauses on protection of people with special needs like the PWDs. The law must ensure that they are not exploited by financial institutions because of their conditions. The law ought to make sure that the PWDs are educated about their rights in the financial market place and all information on financial products offered by financial institutions should be simplified and interpreted to them before they make consumption decisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is amongst the first few studies to provide a meticulous and unique discourse on the ever increasing role of financial literacy combined with consumer protection to reduce consumption risks within the financial markets, especially in developing countries in the aftermath of global pandemic shocks. This study uses the social learning theory, theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behaviour to elucidate how customized financial literacy can enhance consumer protection to increase financial inclusion of groups with special needs like the PWDs who have become more susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions in under-developed financial markets, especially in post Covid-19 pandemic.

This study aims to examine the nexus between digital financial literacy and customers’ perceived financial behavior within the Kuwaiti context. Moreover, it will further explore how digital financial literacy relates to financial behavior dimensions.

Data collection was facilitated by creating a questionnaire derived from multiple literature sources. This study used a cross-sectional, time-based dimension. Data was analyzed using the partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling approach, using the Smart-PLS 4 software for computation.

Findings demonstrated a significant relationship between digital financial literacy and financial behavior, with a path coefficient of 0.542, a p-value of 0.000 and an R² value of 0.581. The explorative model revealed substantial relationships between many dimensions of digital financial literacy and various dimensions of financial behavior. More precisely, financial knowledge, awareness and decision-making were the factors that had the most significant impact on financial behavior.

Kuwaiti policymakers should consider including digital financial literacy programs in comprehensive financial education programs to improve public understanding of digital financial instruments and their consequences.

As the authors know, this is the initial endeavor to evaluate the relationship between digital financial literacy, financial behavior and their respective dimensions.

The investment behaviour of individuals has been a major area of interest for several researchers and policymakers due to its great impact on the economy. This study aimed to assess the investment behaviour of individuals in light of their risk appetite and how financial literacy regulates this relationship.

A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect responses from individuals using purposive and convenience sampling techniques. Individuals were presented with 16 investment avenues widely offered by the Indian financial market to choose from to construct a hypothetical portfolio. The association between risk appetite, financial literacy and the composition of the hypothetical portfolio was analysed using a gologit model.

Increased risk appetite increased the probability of respondents creating a portfolio with a greater proportion of risky assets and less diversification. Lower levels of financial literacy pointed towards portfolios with traditional and low-risk avenues. The results also revealed a significant moderating impact of financial literacy on risk appetite and the creation of the type of a hypothetical portfolio.

Even though the intended behaviour is a close estimate of actual behaviour, there is a possibility of deviation that cannot be ignored.

The present study provides insights into how individuals make portfolio choices by incorporating risk appetite and diversification factors whilst making investment decisions, thereby expanding the literature from an emerging economy perspective. The role of financial literacy as a moderator has not been studied in the domain of hypothetical portfolio creation in India, which has been empirically explored in the current study.

This research focuses on the financial literacy level, stock participation, and financial behavior among millennials in Indonesia.

Logit regression analysis is performed to analyze the relationship among tested variables. The weighted percentage analysis is also used to portray a response in relation to the sample of respondents. Such an analysis is widely used in Indonesia.

Findings suggest that for basic and advanced financial literacy level topics, millennials with higher education level and profession related to economy are the ones who have high basic financial literacy level. However, as respondents become older and/or get married, the basic financial literacy level tends to decrease. When the questions are advanced, the education level is statistically significant. If they have more available money to spend than others, then they tend to have a higher advanced financial literacy level. However, the advanced financial literacy level of female respondents who are older and/or have children tends to decrease. Subsequently, the relationship between financial literacy level and stock market participation is evident when millennials have a high basic and/or advanced financial literacy level, suggesting that they tend to participate in the stock market. Overconfident millennials or those who focus on learning economics also likely participate in the stock market.

Every citizen can be financially and economically active in certain circumstances if he or she has competencies, such as financial literacy. Current academic research suggests that financial literacy may be more important than income level and professional qualifications, as the decisive factor in the future will not be the amount of financial resources available to a person but the ability to manage them effectively and achieve their goals. Financial literacy competencies help different social groups to achieve private financial stability, acquire skills such as private financial planning, savings (including the third pillar of pensions), and their diversification, private capital multiplication, and openness to new business initiatives. The study aims to find out how financial literacy has developed in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Particular attention is paid to factors influencing the level of financial literacy. Research methods used are analysis of scientific publications and previously conducted research, analysis of surveys’ data on financial literacy and their factors, comparative time-scale analysis using regression trendline calculations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The research results proved the impact and interconnection of main financial inclusion aspects such as account ownership, use of the Internet, availability of ATMs, and bank offices on financial literacy level. The main factor influencing the demand side of financial services is numeracy knowledge; a strong correlation has been found between PISA mathematics average scores for countries and their literacy level. The analyzed savings factor (voluntary savings for pension, life insurance, and investments in mutual funds) showed a heterogeneous situation – the ranks of countries differed from the financial literacy levels. It draws the attention of government policy-makers to attract citizens to these long-term investment and social security products by strengthening the supply side of the financial services.

This work uses survey data from the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (Comissão de Mercado de Valores Mobiliários – CMVM) to examine financial literacy and literacy bias. The main objective of this study is to shed light on this issue by identifying the individual characteristics that are associated with financial literacy, namely overconfidence and underconfidence, which in turn might help explain individuals' financial decisions. The study distinguishes two groups, i.e. students and nonstudents, and considers several characteristics that are usually employed in this stream of research.

The data are based on a survey conducted by a partnership between the CMVM and a consortium of Portuguese universities. This paper has a three-fold aim. First, it studies the main individual features associated with objective financial literacy. Second, it analyzes the relationship between those variables and the bias between self-perceived and objective literacy, distinguishing overconfidence and underconfidence. Third, and most originally, this framework was also used to examine the differences between students and nonstudents. Those aims are pursued using cross-sectional ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions, except for the study of the literacy bias, for which the authors use an ordered probit.

Literacy is higher in individuals of the male gender who are older, have higher incomes, live in metropolitan areas, are highly educated, have a field of study related to finance and have high self-perceived literacy. Younger people are more overconfident. Unconditionally, women are less overconfident than men, but conditionally, they overestimate their knowledge. People holding securities and with a field of study related to finance are more overconfident. The gender effect is mainly driven by students, and the impact of a field of study and of holding securities on overconfidence decreases and increases, respectively, for students. The results highlight the importance of financial education.

Due to the way that the questionnaire was made available, there is no guarantee that the sample is representative of the Portuguese general population, or, for that matter, representative of the typical Portuguese retail investors or households. Also, there is no guarantee that the same individual did not answer the questionnaire more than once, although this is highly improbable. The link to the online questionnaire was only transmitted within e-mail databases owned by the CMVM and Portuguese universities, so the authors cannot guarantee its unbiasedness.

The authors' results may help the National Plan for Financial Education (the acronym in Portuguese is PNFF) fine-tune the required actions towards different target groups and, most importantly, highlight that different groups may require different approaches aiming to narrow the gap between objective and perceived literacy. The first step should be creating procedures to provide feedback on the objective and perceived literacy of those who enroll in financial formation programs.

The study distinguishes two groups, students and nonstudents, providing additional insights that might guide policymakers on how to structure financial education to enhance individual financial behavior. This is especially important in a country such as Portugal which has the lowest objective financial literacy in the Eurozone.

This study contributes to the financial literacy literature, in particular to the stream of research that focuses on psychological biases, by shedding light on the factors associated with both individual overconfidence and underconfidence. Differentiating between students and nonstudents provides additional insights, which might guide policymakers on how to structure financial education to enhance individual financial behavior.