Journal of Financial Literacy
Journal of Financial Literacy (JFL) is an international peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes high-quality research across diverse fields of financial literacy and financial studies, including financial literacy, financial education, personal finance, behavioral finance, financial inclusion, consumer finance, investment literacy, banking literacy, digital finance, financial technology (FinTech), financial decision-making, economics, business, management, accounting, and related interdisciplinary research. The journal aims to provide an inclusive scholarly platform for researchers, academics, educators, practitioners, and policymakers to disseminate original research that contributes to theoretical development, empirical knowledge, financial capability, practical innovation, and solutions to contemporary issues in financial literacy, finance, and economic behavior. JFL welcomes multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary studies that connect financial literacy, finance, economics, business, management, and accounting to address complex local, national, regional, and global issues. The journal encourages research that integrates perspectives from financial education, behavioral finance, consumer behavior, banking, digital finance, FinTech, investment, economic development, business strategy, management, and accounting. By promoting cross-disciplinary dialogue, JFL seeks to support the advancement of knowledge that is academically rigorous, socially relevant, and beneficial for wider communities.
Articles
10 Documents
<![CDATA[The language of platform governance: An economics-based scoping review of SME value creation and dependency in digital platform ecosystems ]]>
<![CDATA[Olivia Putri Dahlan]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026): January 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
<![CDATA[Digital platforms have become a dominant form of economic organization, yet small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often participate in platform ecosystems without clear guidance on how platform governance changes value creation and value capture. This study develops an original economics-based scoping review of peer-reviewed, DOI-bearing literature to explain how platform participation affects SME performance, innovation, and dependency. Drawing on transaction cost economics, institutional economics, resource-based theory, dynamic capabilities, multi-sided market theory, and ecosystem strategy, the article asks: What economic mechanisms explain SME value creation on platforms, what governance tensions affect value capture, and what research agenda follows for business management scholarship? A theory-led scoping method was used to synthesize 40 DOI-verified sources, including foundational economics articles and contemporary digital platform studies. The synthesis identifies five connected mechanisms: transaction-cost economizing, network-effect scaling, boundary-resource governance, ecosystem complementarities, and SME platform capability. It also shows that platforms do not simply reduce market frictions; they relocate coordination, bargaining, and innovation risks from traditional firm boundaries into platform rules, interfaces, data architectures, and complementor relationships. The article contributes a three-layer framework - economizing, orchestrating, and capability-building - and proposes testable propositions for future empirical research. The findings suggest that SMEs benefit most when digital platform capability and network capability are combined with institutional safeguards against platform-owner opportunism, opaque algorithmic governance, and complementor displacement. The study concludes that platform participation is best understood not as a purely technological adoption decision but as a governance choice shaped by transaction costs, capabilities, and ecosystem power.]]>
<![CDATA[Financial literacy in Indonesia’s remote provinces: Evidence from a two-wave panel of 11 provinces in 2016-2022 ]]>
<![CDATA[Rifqi Aqil Asyrof]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026): January 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
<![CDATA[Financial literacy is increasingly treated as a developmental capability; however, its subnational distribution remains uneven in large archipelagic countries. This study examines financial literacy in Indonesia's remote and outer-island contexts using a balanced two-wave panel of 11 provinces observed in 2016 and 2022. The study focuses on provinces with substantial remote-area, archipelagic, frontier, and/or underdeveloped-district characteristics: Nusa Tenggara Barat, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Kalimantan Barat, Kalimantan Tengah, Kalimantan Utara, Sulawesi Tenggara, Sulawesi Barat, Maluku, Maluku Utara, Papua Barat, and Papua. Publicly reported provincial indicators from the Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) National Survey of Financial Literacy and Inclusion are used to construct province-year measures of financial literacy, financial inclusion, and the inclusion-literacy gap. The results show that the mean financial literacy index increased from 25.55% in 2016 to 48.08% in 2022, while the mean financial inclusion index rose from 63.01% to 81.61%. The average inclusion-literacy gap narrowed from 37.45 to 33.53 pp, but the aggregate trend masked sharp heterogeneity. Nusa Tenggara Barat, Papua Barat, and Kalimantan Utara recorded large literacy catch-up, whereas Sulawesi Tenggara and Kalimantan Tengah displayed widening gaps, suggesting that formal access may have expanded faster than user capability. Panel regressions indicate a strong positive level association between inclusion and literacy, but first-difference estimates are not statistically significant, underscoring the need for caution in the causal interpretation. The study concludes that remote-area financial-literacy policy should move beyond access expansion toward capability, trust, digital safety, local-language delivery, and province-specific segmentation.]]>
<![CDATA[Digital financial literacy in the FinTech era: A PRISMA-guided systematic literature review ]]>
<![CDATA[Mochamad Dandi]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026): January 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
<![CDATA[Digital financial literacy (DFL) has become a central capability for households, micro and small enterprises, financial-service providers, and regulators as payments, savings, credit, investment, remittances, insurance, and public transfers move through digital channels. Although the field has grown quickly, it remains fragmented across financial literacy, fintech adoption, consumer protection, cybersecurity awareness, financial inclusion, and development studies. This article presents a PRISMA-guided systematic literature review of DFL. Searches of open scholarly indexes, publisher pages, institutional repositories, and backward and forward citation trails identified 447 records. After duplicate removal, title and abstract screening, and eligibility assessment, 45 studies and policy reports were included in the qualitative synthesis. The review shows that DFL is best understood as a multidimensional and risk-aware capability that combines financial knowledge, digital access and skills, understanding of digital financial products, cyber-risk awareness, attitudes toward responsible digital use, and behavior that converts knowledge into safer decisions. Empirical evidence links DFL to digital-payment adoption, savings and spending discipline, investment participation, use of formal financial services, financial resilience, financial well-being, and microenterprise performance. However, the field is constrained by inconsistent definitions, limited cross-country measurement harmonization, overreliance on cross-sectional self-report designs, insufficient attention to fraud and algorithmic consumer risks, and weak integration between literacy research and product-governance research. The article contributes an integrative framework, a coded synthesis of major antecedents and outcomes, and a future research agenda for management scholars, policymakers, and financial-service organizations seeking to design inclusive, trustworthy, and capability-enhancing digital finance ecosystems.]]>
<![CDATA[Financial literacy and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) use among Indonesian millennials: A narrative review ]]>
<![CDATA[Sahara Putri Dahlan]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026): January 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
<![CDATA[Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), commonly known in Indonesia as paylater, has become a prominent form of digital consumer credit embedded in e-commerce, travel, ride-hailing, and lifestyle applications. For Indonesian millennials, BNPL offers convenience, payment flexibility, promotional incentives, and access to short-term credit without the procedural burden of conventional credit cards. Simultaneously, it raises concerns about impulsive consumption, repayment stress, loan stacking, and an uneven understanding of fees, penalties, data use, and credit consequences. This study examines the relationship between financial literacy and BNPL use among Indonesian millennials through an IMRAD-based narrative review. The synthesis draws on official Indonesian demographic, financial literacy, regulatory, and BNPL market data, together with recent literature on digital financial literacy, consumer credit, financial management behavior, and responsible BNPL use. The review suggests that financial literacy is necessary but insufficient for responsible BNPL behavior. General financial knowledge may improve budgeting, cost recognition, and risk perception; however, BNPL decisions are also shaped by platform design, promotional framing, perceived behavioral control, social influence, and self-control. This study proposes an integrative framework in which financial literacy affects BNPL outcomes through digital financial literacy, risk perception, budgeting behavior, understanding of terms, and repayment discipline. Regulation, disclosure quality, and ethical platform design are essential complements to consumer capabilities. This study contributes to business management scholarship by connecting fintech adoption, consumer behavior, financial well-being, and responsible digital finance in an emerging market context.]]>
<![CDATA[Mapping peer-to-peer lending research: A bibliometric review of publication growth, knowledge structure, and future research agenda ]]>
<![CDATA[Siti Hurul Aini]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026): January 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
<![CDATA[Peer-to-peer lending has become a significant topic in digital finance because it connects borrowers and lenders through online platforms, reduces some traditional banking frictions, and exposes new forms of information asymmetry, platform risk, and regulatory complexity. This manuscript presents a bibliometric review of peer-to-peer lending research to identify how the field has developed, which publication outlets and countries dominate knowledge production, and which themes now structure the research agenda. The review uses a secondary bibliometric synthesis based on published Scopus-oriented bibliometric evidence covering 2007-2024, complemented by methodological guidance from bibliometric research and selected substantive studies on credit risk, trust, financial inclusion, and regulation. The synthesis indicates that peer-to-peer lending research progressed from early platform-novelty studies to a mature, multidisciplinary field. Publication growth accelerated after 2015, reached a peak around 2020-2021, and then entered a consolidation phase marked by risk, artificial intelligence, market governance, and inclusion-oriented questions. Core themes include information asymmetry, lender trust, borrower soft information, default prediction, financial inclusion, small and medium enterprise financing, data protection, and sustainable or Islamic lending models. The article contributes by integrating performance analysis and thematic science mapping into a research agenda for management, finance, information systems, and public policy scholars. The findings suggest that future studies should move beyond prediction accuracy and adoption questions toward explainable risk models, responsible platform governance, consumer protection, financial well-being, and comparative institutional analysis.]]>
<![CDATA[Beyond access: Why digital financial literacy must anchor Indonesia’s fintech revolution ]]>
<![CDATA[Waqas Ahmad Watto]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 2 (2026): July 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
|
DOI: 10.55942/jfl.v1i2.2114
<![CDATA[Indonesia has become one of the most dynamic financial technology markets in the emerging world, and its policy establishment has celebrated each new milestone in digital adoption as a victory for financial inclusion. In this commentary, I argue that this celebration was premature. Evidence increasingly suggests that access has outpaced capability: Indonesians are acquiring digital financial services faster than they are acquiring the digital financial literacy required to use them safely and productively. Drawing on recent Indonesian empirical studies and the international literature, I make three claims. First, financial literacy exerts no direct effect on fintech adoption in Indonesia, operating only indirectly through user innovativeness, meaning that adoption can flourish among the financially illiterate. Second, digital financial literacy is a construct distinct from traditional financial literacy, with independent effects on saving behavior, financial inclusion, and financial well-being. Third, the gains from capability building are largest precisely for the groups—women, youth, and low-income households—whom adoption-centric policy treats as passive beneficiaries. I conclude that Indonesia’s regulatory agenda must be rebalanced: away from adoption metrics as ends in themselves, and toward a dual strategy in which digital financial literacy anchors rather than trails the fintech revolution.]]>
<![CDATA[Credit alone will not save warung economics: Financial literacy as the binding constraint on Indonesian MSME growth ]]>
<![CDATA[Sahara Putri Dahlan]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 2 (2026): July 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
|
DOI: 10.55942/jfl.v1i2.2115
<![CDATA[Indonesian policy toward micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) has long been dominated by a single diagnosis: small firms are starved of capital, and the state’s task is to supply that capital. Subsidized credit schemes, mandated bank-lending targets, and an exuberant fintech lending sector all embody this supply side conviction. This commentary argues that the diagnosis is incomplete and, in its current form, is increasingly counterproductive. Drawing on Indonesian and international evidence, I contend that owner-managers’ financial literacy may now be a binding constraint on MSME growth, alongside access to finance. Access to finance and financial literacy are complements: capital translates into performance only when owners can plan, price, separate accounts and manage debt. Recent Indonesian studies show that literacy drives both access to finance and the productive use of financial technology, while credit injected into low-literacy firms yields little or no measurable growth. Experimental evidence further shows that simple, rule-of-thumb training changes behavior where conventional accounting instruction fails, and that digitalization raises, rather than lowers, the literacy threshold. I argue for rebalancing Indonesian MSME policy toward demand-side capability building by embedding simplified financial training in credit programs, targeting the least-educated owners, and evaluating literacy interventions with the same rigor applied to lending. Credit without capability is not a development policy; it is a deferred disappointment.]]>
<![CDATA[Islamic financial literacy in the world’s largest Muslim Economy: Rethinking the road to inclusive finance in Indonesia ]]>
<![CDATA[Siti Hurul Aini]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 2 (2026): July 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
|
DOI: 10.55942/jfl.v1i2.2116
<![CDATA[Indonesia hosts the world’s largest Muslim population, yet its Islamic financial sector remains a modest player in the national financial system, and millions of Indonesians remain outside formal finance altogether. This commentary argues that the dominant strategy for growing Islamic finance in Indonesiaappealing to religious identity and Sharia compliance as the primary marketing propositionhas reached its natural limits. Drawing on a growing body of Indonesian and comparative evidence, I contend that religiosity influences financial choices in ways that are mediated, moderated and segmented, and therefore cannot by itself convert faith into sustained participation in Islamic finance. The missing lever is Islamic financial literacy understood as a multidimensional capability encompassing knowledge, attitude, behavior and awareness, rather than a narrow familiarity with religious prohibitions. Evidence from Indonesian micro, small and medium enterprises shows that Islamic financial literacy operates primarily through financial inclusion to improve business performance, implying that literacy building and inclusion infrastructure must be pursued jointly. I outline the policy architecture such a strategy requirescurriculum integration, fintech-enabled delivery, segment-sensitive communication and standardized measurementand identify research priorities. The argument repositions Islamic financial literacy from a peripheral educational concern to the central mechanism of inclusive Islamic finance. Keywords: Islamic financial literacy; financial inclusion; religiosity; Islamic banking; Indonesia]]>
<![CDATA[Frictionless money, frictionless debt: E-wallets, PayLater, and the financial socialization of Indonesia’s digital generation ]]>
<![CDATA[Olivia Putri Dahlan]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 2 (2026): July 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
|
DOI: 10.55942/jfl.v1i2.2117
<![CDATA[Indonesia’s payment landscape has been transformed in less than a decade. E-wallets and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL, locally “PayLater”) services now sit inside the shopping applications that young Indonesians open dozens of times a day, and their defining commercial virtue is frictionlessness: money that moves without being felt. This commentary argues that frictionlessness is not a neutral convenience but a deliberate design choice that suppresses the psychological “pain of payment,” and that its costs fall disproportionately on a digital generation whose financial literacy remains thin and whose consumption norms are formed on social media. Drawing on Indonesian and international evidence, I contend that e-wallets cultivate an illusion of liquidity that converts low self-control into excessive spending, that BNPL functions as credit that does not feel like credit and sits largely outside responsible-lending obligations, and that social media intensity both fuels impulsive adoption and erodes the protective influence of financial parenting. Protective factorsfinancial self-efficacy, parental socialization, mindfulness, and digital financial literacyare real but unevenly distributed. I conclude that financial education and regulation must engage with payment architecture itself: friction, salience, and default design should become objects of policy, not merely information provision. Otherwise, Indonesia risks socializing a generation into debt it never consciously decided to take. Keywords: buy-now-pay-later; e-wallets; pain of payment; financial literacy; Indonesia]]>
<![CDATA[Inclusion without protection? Consumer vulnerability in Indonesia’s digital finance boom ]]>
<![CDATA[Syahyana Ayu Purbasari]]>
<![CDATA[ Journal of Financial Literacy Vol. 1 No. 2 (2026): July 2026 ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Privietlab ]]>
Show Abstract
|
Download Original
|
Original Source
|
Check in Google Scholar
|
DOI: 10.55942/jfl.v1i2.2118
<![CDATA[Indonesia is widely celebrated as a financial inclusion success story. Within a decade, digital finance and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending have drawn millions of previously unbanked citizens into the formal financial system, apparently resolving a long-standing paradox in which a profitable banking sector coexisted with mass exclusion. This commentary argues that the celebration is premature. The same technologies that expanded access have generated a new class of consumers who are included but acutely vulnerable: exposed to illegal lending platforms, predatory pricing, misuse of personal data, intimidating debt collection, and over-indebtedness. Drawing on Indonesian and international evidence, I contend that the dominant policy metric the share of adults with access to formal financial services is no longer fit for purpose, and that financial literacy campaigns, the default policy response to consumer harm, cannot alone carry the burden of protection. I propose that inclusion be reconceptualized as a triad of access, capability, and protection, in which each element is measured, regulated, and evaluated jointly rather than sequentially. The commentary closes with implications for Indonesian regulators, for cross-country measurement exercises such as the Global Findex, and for a research agenda that shifts from counting accounts to assessing welfare outcomes. Keywords: financial inclusion; consumer protection; fintech; peer-to-peer lending; financial literacy]]>
