Published Paper Details:

As generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) rapidly infiltrates banking, investment advising, and wealth management, making good financial choices is becoming more difficult (Dwivedi et al., 2023). Earlier research have examined technological adoption, robo-advisory use and financial literacy in isolation (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2014). However, few previous research have integrated AI literacy, financial literacy, perceived usefulness, trust and financial risk tolerance into a unified empirical framework that may explain the reasons why retail investors choose to use or not utilise AI-generated financial advice. This research addresses this gap by proposing and theoretically conceptualising an integrated model on the impact of AI literacy, financial literacy and perceived usefulness on financial decision making via trust and the moderating effect of financial risk tolerance on the strength of the trust-to-decision route. The eleven hypotheses test direct effects, mediation and moderation. They are based on the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989), the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003), the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and behavioural finance (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). The proposed study approach is quantitative and cross-sectional. The final sample size is 468 retail investors and digital banking users. The sample was selected from 550 questionnaires that were originally given out and the minimal sample size was determined using the inverse square root approach for partial least squares structural equation modelling (Kock & Hadaya, 2018). Data will be collected using an online survey using a five-point Likert scale and processed using SmartPLS and IBM SPSS Statistics for partial least square structural equation modelling. The research also presents an analysis on a computer simulated data set (N = 468) that was generated to fit the hypothesised model prior to the collection of actual data. All eleven hypotheses are validated in this simulated demonstration: Trust partly mediates the links between AI literacy, financial literacy and perceived usefulness and financial decision making; and financial risk tolerance considerably moderates the trust-decision link. These phoney findings are just for demonstration reasons, actual responder data must be evaluated before they can be released. The work presents a theoretically grounded, testable model of AI-assisted financial conduct. It also provides good recommendations to banks and fintech businesses, to policymakers and private investors.