Financial Literacy And Investment Decisions: Re-Examining The Mediating Role Of Financial Technology Digital Finance Era
Keywords:
Financial Literacy, Financial Technology, Investment Decision, Generation ZAbstract
his study re-examines the extent to which financial technology (fintech) mediates the effect of financial literacy on the investment decisions of Indonesian university students, situating the original findings within Indonesia's most recent national financial-inclusion indicators and the 2025–2026 empirical literature on digital investment behaviour. A quantitative, causal-associative design was used. Primary data were collected via questionnaire from 88 active students at North Sumatra State Islamic University who had experience investing in the money or capital market, selected by purposive sampling from a population of 681 students using the Slovin formula. Data were analysed with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (SEM-PLS) in SmartPLS. Financial literacy has a positive and significant effect on investment decisions (β = 0.661; p = 0.000). Financial technology has a positive but statistically non-significant direct effect on investment decisions (β = 0.070; p = 0.539) and does not significantly mediate the financial-literacy–investment-decision relationship (β = 0.047; p = 0.558). Benchmarked against Indonesia's 2025 National Survey of Financial Literacy and Inclusion (SNLIK) — a literacy index of 66.46%, up from 65.43% in 2024 — and the growth of registered capital-market investors to 30.30 million Single Investor Identifications (SID) by August 2026, these results are contrasted with several 2025–2026 Indonesian studies that do detect a significant mediating role for fintech once digital, platform-specific financial literacy (rather than general financial literacy) is modelled. Universities, regulators, and fintech providers should not assume that expanding fintech access alone converts financial knowledge into sound investment behaviour; literacy interventions that are platform-specific and behaviourally embedded appear more likely to activate fintech's mediating potential.
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