Exploratory Analysis of Financial Literacy and Digital Financial Literacy: Portuguese Case

Abstract

In last few years, the fast development of digital technology and e-commerce has changed the spending and saving behavior, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been a strong evidence in the literature that establishes a relationship between digital literacy and financial literacy. According to this, the study intends to present a descriptive analysis about financial literacy and digital financial literacy among Portuguese adults. The data were collected using a questionnaire made available through the Google Forms platform. The questionnaire consists of two main sections of questions, and there were received 311 valid responses. The sample is distributed almost identically between both genders, but more than a half belongs to the age cohort between 36 and 66 years old. Respondents are highly educated, about 70% holding an academic degree, and about a half are in intermediate income levels. The results allow us to identify, generally speaking, a good level of financial literacy, both in objective terms and in terms of perception. Moreover, a vast majority of respondents use mobile phones to make payments (65.9%), and use digital means in their financial transactions. In addition, differences in actual financial literacy level are significant for gender, while no significant differences were found between genders, both in terms of perceived financial literacy levels and in the use of mobile phones and other digital devices.