Article Details
  • Published Online:
    December  2025
  • Product Name:
    The IUP Journal of Financial Risk Management
  • Product Type:
    Article
  • Product Code:
    IJFRM031225
  • DOI:
    10.71329/IUPJFRM/2025.22.4.57-73
  • Author Name:
    Arti and Usha Sharma
  • Availability:
    YES
  • Subject/Domain:
    Finance
  • Download Format:
    PDF
  • Pages:
    57-73
Volume 22, Issue 4, October-December 2025
Interplay of Digital Financial Literacy and Mutual Fund Investments: A Thematic Literature Review
Abstract

The advent of digital technologies has fundamentally reshaped the global financial environment, particularly mutual fund investing strategies. Fintech innovations such as robo-advisory services, machine learning-driven fund assessors, and blockchain platforms have lowered investment obstacles, improved accessibility, and enabled real-time decision-making. However, these advancements also introduced new type of risks that are left unaddressed by traditional financial literacy. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize existing literature, digital financial literacy, behavioral finance and regulatory frameworks to provide a comprehensive understanding of their interplay in the mutual fund investment environment. The results show that while higher financial literacy correlates with more informed and confident investment behavior, digital platforms often accentuate heuristic biases including overconfidence and recency bias.

Introduction

An unparalleled wave of digital innovation has fundamentally reshaped the global financial landscape. The accelerating globalization of capital markets and a relentless pace of technological advancement has fueled this shift (Pan et al., 2020). It has liberated financial decision-making from its historical confines, moving beyond brick-and-mortar institutions and direct human consultation (Shafiee et al., 2024). A substantial proportion of investment activity is now performed through sophisticated digital channels, encompassing mobile banking platforms, online investment aggregators, algorithmic advisory systems (roboadvisors), and a diverse array of specialized fintech offerings (Ahmad, 2024).