Suriyani Muhamad

Universiti Malaysia Terengganu 

E-mail: suriyani_md@umt.edu.my 

ORCID 0000-0002-9928-8993

Savings behaviour of bottom income group: Is there any role for financial efficacy and risk preference?

Suhal Kusairi

Universiti Malaysia Terengganu 

E-mail: suhal@umt.edu.my 

ORCID 0000-0002-9156-6741 

*Corresponding Author

Nadia Zamri

Universiti Malaysia Terengganu

E-mail: nadiaa.zamrii@gmail.com 

ORCID 0000-0002-5100-2386

Abstract. An immense concern of governments globalwide today is financial inclusion as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Governments arrive at many solutions by addressing the policies to improve financial achievement, mainly through financial education programmes and specifically personal finance. Yet, financial management has such a broad scope and is not limited to just knowledge and financial literacy. Individuals are born with different confidence levels and non-identical financial abilities. This study investigates financial self-efficacy by applying psychometric instruments, risk preference and demography characteristics towards saving decision behaviour. The sample in the survey consisted of 479 respondents in Peninsular Malaysia that then became subject to structural equation modelling. The results show that financial self-efficacy is one of the critical factors that explain individual saving decision behaviour. Also, risk preference, gender and area (rural or urban) determine the saving decision behaviour. This paper also implicates that there  might be a gap between the rural and urban levels of financial efficacy that needs government’s action to narrow it.

Received: June, 2020

1st Revision: March, 2021

Accepted: May, 2021

DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2021/14-2/3

JEL Classification: G40, G41, G51, G32, D14, R51

Keywords: behavioural finance, financial efficacy, saving behaviour, risk preference, demographic factors