Determinants of Financial Behaviours among Malaysians

Abstract

The  importance  of  inancial  literacy  in  promoting  good  inancial  behaviour  has  been established  in  previous  studies.  Nonetheless,  a  study  that  speciically  analyses  Malaysian or Asian general public is very rare, despite various cases involving bankruptcies, suicides and harassment that result from improper inancial decisions within the region. This study focuses  on  Malaysians'  inancial  literacy  and  inancial  behaviour.  It  is  hypothesized  that inancial behaviour is signiicantly correlated with inancial literacy. It is also expected that Malaysians' inancial behaviour and inancial literacy vary signiicantly among those from different education and income levels. A quantitative approach was adopted for this study, utilizing questionnaire survey as the main research instrument. Results showed signiicant, positive  correlation  between  inancial  literacy  and  inancial  behaviour.  Moreover,  less educated individuals and lower income earners were found to have lower inancial literacy. This  paper  provides  a  discussion  on  educational  programmes  that  could  be  conducted  in order  to  enhance  the  public's  inancial  literacy  and  promotes  good  inancial  practices, especially among these groups of individuals. ");} // --> activate javascript