From Digital Tools to Decision Outcomes: Understanding Investment Quality in FinTech Environments

Abstract

The rapid expansion of financial technology (FinTech) has transformed individual investment practices by enabling real-time access to market information, digital trading platforms, and technology-driven decision-support tools. While FinTech adoption is widely assumed to improve investment outcomes, behavioral finance research suggests that digital environments may also introduce cognitive challenges, particularly through information overload. Drawing on Behavioral Finance Theory, Cognitive Load Theory, and the Technology Acceptance Model, this study examines how FinTech usage and information overload influence online investment decision quality, with decision confidence as a mediating variable and digital financial literacy as a moderating variable. Using a quantitative, cross-sectional research design, data were collected from individual online investors through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that FinTech usage has a positive and significant effect on online investment decision quality, whereas information overload exerts a negative effect. FinTech usage was found to enhance investors’ decision confidence, while information overload significantly reduced confidence. Decision confidence, in turn, positively influenced online investment decision quality and partially mediated the relationships between both FinTech usage and information overload with decision quality. Furthermore, digital financial literacy was found to significantly moderate the relationship between decision confidence and online investment decision quality, indicating that confidence leads to better investment decisions when supported by adequate digital financial knowledge. The findings contribute to behavioral finance and FinTech literature by shifting the focus from technology adoption and trading behavior to online investment decision quality as a process-oriented outcome. The study highlights the importance of managing information overload and strengthening digital financial literacy to ensure that FinTech-enabled confidence translates into high-quality investment decisions. The results offer valuable implications for investors, FinTech platform designers, educators, and policymakers seeking to promote informed and responsible participation in digital financial markets, particularly in emerging economies.