The role of information exchange and financial services in cross-regional investment: A study on the impact mechanism of high-speed rail connectivity

The low level of financial literacy among adolescents has become a critical issue that requires serious attention, particularly for vocational high school (SMK) students who are beginning to manage their finances independently. Limited understanding of personal financial management can lead to consumptive behavior, weak saving habits, and increased vulnerability to the misuse of digital financial services. This Community Service Program aimed to enhance the financial literacy of SMK students through applicative and contextual education on personal financial management. The program was implemented at SMK IPTEK and involved 35 students as participants. The PKM activities were conducted by five lecturers from the Undergraduate Accounting Study Program of Universitas Pamulang on September 27, 2025. The implementation methods included interactive counseling sessions, participatory discussions, budgeting simulations, and the introduction of potential digital financial risks. Program evaluation was carried out by comparing students’ knowledge and skills before and after the activities. The results showed a significant improvement in students’ financial understanding and competencies, particularly in distinguishing between needs and wants, preparing simple personal budgets, and increasing awareness of digital financial risks. These findings indicate that structured and participant-oriented financial education is effective in improving financial literacy. This PKM program contributes to fostering responsible financial behavior among SMK students and is expected to serve as a sustainable community service model supported by schools and relevant stakeholders.

The rise of cybercrime in Indonesia’s digital financial services demands effective and communicative public education. This study aims to explore how educational communication messages for cybercrime prevention are represented in BCA’s “Don’t Know? Kasih No!” campaign published on YouTube. Using a qualitative content analysis approach, the study focuses on interpreting both verbal and visual message meanings based on Rice and Atkin’s Public Communication Campaign theory. Findings reveal that the campaign constructs digital security education through several key strategies: simplifying technical concepts, providing practical behavioral instructions, reinforcing vigilance through communicative visual elements, engaging the public in participatory message dissemination, and utilizing humor and nostalgia as cultural anchoring. This multidimensional approach successfully delivers messages that are not only informative but also persuasive and easily accepted across diverse societal groups.

The emergence of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has transformed the digital payment ecosystem by enabling seamless, instant, and interoperable financial transactions across India. Its widespread acceptance has accelerated the shift toward cashless payments and increased the availability of digital financial services for millions of users. However, the rapid growth in transaction volume and user adoption has also created new opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities within the digital payment infrastructure.Financial fraud associated with UPI platforms has become increasingly sophisticated, involving techniques such as phishing campaigns, fraudulent QR codes, identity impersonation, account hijacking, social engineering attacks, and the misuse of mule accounts. These evolving threats generate complex transaction patterns that are often difficult to detect using conventional rule-based security mechanisms. As fraud strategies continue to change, static detection systems struggle to provide accurate and timely identification of suspicious activities.Recent progress in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning technologies has significantly enhanced the capability of fraud detection systems. One of these developments has caught a lot of interest from researchers is hybrid deep learning methods that are able to integrate the benefits of several computational models. Several techniques can be combined in a unified approach for enhancing fraud detection, such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, Autoencoders, Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), and Federated Learning. These architectures enable real-time analysis, adaptive learning, privacy protection, and efficient management of large-scale transactional data. This review is based on the recent research and studies regarding the detection of fraudulent activities in UPI-based payment environment using hybrid deep learning techniques. It offers detailed evaluations of the current models, their strengths and weaknesses, explores current issues and challenges, and suggests areas of future work. These results suggest that hybrid deep learning architectures are promising to improve the security of digital payment systems through better detection accuracy, fewer false alarms, safeguarding sensitive user data, and greater transparency of automated decision-making. Thus, these wise frameworks are a valuable basis for developing safe, reliable, and trustworthy digital financial ecosystems

Financial services can be defined as the products and services offered by financial institutions like banks of various kinds for the facilitation of various financial transactions and other related activities in the world of finance like loans, insurance, credit cards, investment opportunities and money management as well as providing information on the stock market and other issues like market trends. Financial Access is the significant aspect that shows the people’s ability to avail the financial products and services. With rapid urbanization and technological advancement, urban populations are increasingly exposed to diverse financial instruments, including banking, insurance, investment, and digital payment platforms. However, disparities in awareness, accessibility, and utilization persist across different demographic segments. For exploring the same present research study titled “A study on access and usages of financial products and Services among Urbanites has been undertaken to study the access and usage patterns of financial products and services among urban residents, focusing on their financial inclusion, literacy, and behavioral aspects. The paper also covers and various issues and challenges faced for availing basic financial products and services.

Regulated industries occupy a unique position within modern economies. Organizations operating in sectors such as utilities, energy, telecommunications, transportation, healthcare, financial services, and infrastructure management must simultaneously pursue growth, innovation, operational excellence, and stakeholder value creation while complying with extensive regulatory requirements. This dual responsibility creates a complex leadership challenge: organizations must remain adaptive and competitive in rapidly evolving markets while maintaining compliance, transparency, and accountability within highly structured regulatory environments. This article examines strategic business transformation as a critical mechanism through which regulated enterprises achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Rather than viewing regulation solely as a constraint on organizational flexibility, the study argues that regulatory environments can serve as catalysts for innovation, operational modernization, stakeholder trust, and long-term strategic differentiation. Enterprises that successfully align transformation initiatives with governance requirements often develop stronger organizational capabilities than competitors operating through compliance-focused approaches alone. The article explores the relationships among leadership, governance, digital transformation, organizational culture, risk management, customer-centricity, and stakeholder alignment. Particular attention is given to the role of executive leadership in navigating uncertainty, managing institutional complexity, and fostering organizational adaptability during large-scale transformation efforts. The study further examines how technological innovation, workforce development, operational resilience, and strategic agility contribute to sustainable enterprise performance within regulated environments. Building upon these discussions, the article proposes an Integrated Leadership Framework for Strategic Transformation in Regulated Markets. The framework connects governance, innovation, resilience, customer value creation, stakeholder trust, and organizational learning into a unified model capable of supporting long-term competitiveness. The article concludes that strategic transformation is no longer an optional initiative for regulated enterprises but a leadership imperative that determines organizational relevance, adaptability, and sustained success.

ABSTRACT Access to financial products and services in the United States has long been unequal, and the unprecedented rapid adoption of fintech in the banking sector has brought new opportunities and challenges for financial access. Existing fintech research has mostly focused on mortgage lending; no study has investigated how fintech adoption relates to alternative financial services, a growing fringe economy that is commonly found in poor, minority-majority neighborhoods. With a uniquely merged dataset, this study investigates how zip-code-level fintech rates relate to the spatial locations of urban alternative financial service storefronts. Findings show that urban zip codes with higher potential fintech rates were less likely to have fringe economy presence, while racial and ethnic characteristics of a zip code remain important predictors of AFS provider, and economic stress may facilitate fringe economy penetration in the rapidly evolving financial service market.

ABSTRACT While many migrant workers had made significant financial progress over the past decades, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted migration patterns and employment opportunities, putting the progress they had made at risk. This study examines the financial capability and well-being of migrant workers in Hangzhou, an industrial hub with a large migrant workforce. Using original survey data collected from 664 migrant workers in two communities with high migrant worker populations between January and March 2025, we investigated the relationship between different dimensions of financial capability–financial knowledge, access to financial services, and digital financial literacy–and financial well-being. We found that both financial access and digital financial literacy were positively associated with financial well-being, which highlighted the importance of strengthening financial capability–especially in digital contexts–as a protective factor for migrant workers’ economic resilience in times of crisis, with implications for policy and intervention efforts aimed at promoting financial inclusion and stability.

ABSTRACT The empirical literature concerning the joint analysis of interactions between information and communication technologies (ICTs), financial inclusion and economic growth, particularly in the context of the countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), is still underdeveloped. This study aims to fill this gap by assessing the impact of ICT on economic growth, considering financial inclusion as the main transmission mechanism. The analysis is based on a panel of seven WAEMU countries covering the period 2006–2023 and uses a simultaneous equation model estimated via the triple least squares (3SLS) method. The empirical results indicate that the spread of ICTs, particularly mobile phones and the internet, significantly promotes the development of financial inclusion, which serves as an effective transmission channel for the impact of ICTs on economic growth. Conversely, fixed-line telephony has no significant effect on financial inclusion. To maximize the impact of ICTs on the development of the financial sector in support of economic growth, WAEMU countries must prioritize investment in digital infrastructure, especially in rural and peri-urban areas. It is also essential to foster the growth of fintech companies and mobile financial services, ensuring transaction security, data protection, and system interoperability.

This study examines the partial impacts of financial literacy and financial inclusion on the performance of culinary micro, small, and medium enterprises in the West Padang District. A quantitative research methodology was employed, with data collected through standardized questionnaires. The population comprised 1,922 culinary MSMEs in West Padang District, from which a sample of 95 respondents was selected using the Yamane formula. The data were analyzed via multiple linear regression in SPSS version 26. The statistics demonstrate that financial literacy substantially affects MSME performance, while financial inclusion does not. The results demonstrate that improving financial literacy among MSME participants is crucial for improved business performance, especially profitability. The study emphasizes the importance of improving financial literacy to enable more effective financial decision-making and encourage optimal use of financial services.

Financial Credit and Savings Products by Financial Service Associations and the Growth of Rural Women Owned Enterprises in Kiambu County

The ability to secure high quality healthcare and access at an affordable cost for the entire population is the principal health objective of many countries on the path to the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study addresses the critical, yet understudied, impact of formal and informal financial inclusion on health, directly supporting the objectives of SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being). The study employs and modifies South Africa's National Income Dynamic Study microdata by combining all five waves to create panel data. A random effects ordered probit model is used since it is possibly the best approach for panel data on self-rated health outcomes as it takes into consideration the existence of an additional normally distributed cross-section error term which captures individual specific effects. Results for formal financial inclusion dummy variable are statistically significant and positive, suggesting that individuals with access to formal financial services such as savings and credit have a higher probability of reporting better health outcomes. However, results for informal financial inclusion dummy variable are statistically significant and negative, implying that higher reliance on informal finance like stokvel savings and mashonisa credit shifts individuals toward the lower outcomes of health. Given the mixed outcomes of the impact of formal and informal financial inclusion on health, this study recommends policies that could integrate informal savings and credit into the formal digital economy and address structural barriers that limit the effectiveness and efficiency of the financial system.

Despite the expansion of digital financial services in India, e-banking adoption among rural women remains limited due to socio-cultural constraints, low digital literacy, and trust deficits. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model, this study conceptualises e-service quality as a higher-order construct and examines attitudinal mediation. Data were collected from 182 rural women in Odisha, India, and analysed using PLS-SEM. The findings show that ESQ influences behavioural intention primarily through attitude, highlighting the central role of experiential service quality in technology adoption. The study contributes to service and digital inclusion literature by theoretically integrating ESQ and TAM in an underexplored context.

Research Aims: This study aims to analyze the influence of Islamic finance skills, knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes on using Islamic financial services in Islamic economics lecturers in universities in the Special Region of Yogyakarta Province. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a quantitative method with saturated sampling techniques for 60 respondents. Data were collected through questionnaires and analyzed using multiple regression. Research Findings: The results of the study show that Islamic finance skills, trust, and attitudes have a positive and significant effect on the use of Islamic financial services, while Islamic financial knowledge does not have a significant effect. Simultaneously, these four variables significantly affect the use of Islamic financial services. Theoretical Contribution/Originality: This research contributes to the literature on Islamic financial literacy, especially in the context of Islamic economics lecturers.

The rapid evolution of digital financial services has transformed the banking landscape, with payments banks emerging as a key player in enhancing financial inclusion. This review study examines the factors influencing the adoption of payments bank services and their impact on consumer behavior. Drawing upon existing literature, the study identifies critical determinants such as perceived ease of use, trust, security, convenience, and awareness that shape consumers’ decisions to adopt payments bank services. Additionally, the study explores behavioral patterns, preferences, and barriers faced by consumers in engaging with these services. By synthesizing prior research, this review provides insights for policymakers, financial institutions, and marketers to design strategies that enhance adoption rates and optimize user experience in the payments banking sector. The findings underscore the importance of aligning technological innovations with consumer expectations to foster a sustainable digital banking ecosystem.

ABSTRACT Rural commercial banks (RCBs) are key financial service providers in rural China, and enhancing their financial resilience is critical for overall financial stability. Using 2013–2023 panel data, this paper constructs a financial resilience measure for RCBs and employs a fixed-effects model to examine the impact of digital transformation on their resilience. Results show that digital transformation significantly improves RCBs’ financial resilience, especially in economically developed regions, areas with unstable climate policies, and those with weaker financial competition. Mechanism analysis reveals that digital transformation strengthens resilience by improving deposit stability, while unstable monetary policies, stringent regulation, and high loan concentration weaken it. Therefore, future efforts should promote RCBs’ digital transformation, foster a stable macroeconomic policy environment, implement differentiated regulation aligned with digitalization, and integrate digital technologies into risk management. Optimizing asset structures will solidify RCBs’ financial resilience and support sustainable agricultural development.

This article is devoted to a comprehensive study of international legal standards governing monetary circulation in the context of financial market globalization, the digitalization of the economy, and the transformation of traditional financial institutions. The relevance of the topic stems from the growing role of international financial organizations in shaping universal rules for the functioning of monetary and credit systems, as well as the need to harmonize national legislation with universally recognized international standards. The essence of monetary circulation as an object of international legal regulation is revealed, and the role of international financial organizations in establishing standards for the stability of monetary and credit systems is analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the activities of international institutions that establish rules for currency regulation, combating financial crimes, ensuring the stability of the banking system, and developing payment systems. The role of key international institutions – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) – in shaping the global regulatory architecture for monetary and payment relations. This article describes key international standards, including principles of monetary policy, financial monitoring requirements, banking regulation standards, and recommendations regarding the digitalization of financial services. It examines the importance of harmonizing national legislation with international standards to ensure financial stability and the effective functioning of the monetary system. It is established that international legal standards are primarily formed in the form of “soft law,” yet they have a significant impact on national legal systems. It is argued that the effective functioning of the monetary system is impossible without taking into account international legal standards, which ensure the stability of the financial system, the transparency of financial flows, and trust in financial institutions. It is concluded that the implementation of such standards is a necessary condition for the integration of states into the global financial system and for enhancing the effectiveness of monetary policy.

ABSTRACT This study investigates mean reversion and volatility in five NSE sectoral indices (Nifty FMCG, IT, Media, Financial Services, and Bank) spanning their inception to 2023. Stationarity was tested using ADF and PP methods, while rescaled range analysis estimated the Hurst Exponent, which was below 0.5 for all indices, confirming mean reversion. The Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model measured reversion speed, ranging from 0.899 to 0.988 across sectors. Volatility analysis indicates that FMCG is the most stable (0.013) and IT is the most volatile (0.04). Results highlight sector-specific variations in mean-reverting behaviour and volatility, offering insights for investors and risk management strategies.

ABSTRACT Financial insecurity is a significant challenge for university students, affecting both wellbeing and study participation. Guided by a socio-ecological perspective, this study examines financial insecurity among university students as a multi-level issue shaped by individual, institutional, and broader structural conditions. A cross-sectional survey examined the prevalence of financial insecurity among Australian university students and its associations with demographic characteristics, health, academic outcomes, and awareness of support services. An online survey was distributed via universities and national student networks (September–October 2024). Financial status was self-reported as adequate (‘comfortable’/‘just getting by’) or inadequate (‘struggling’/‘severely struggling’). Descriptive statistics, logistic regression, and content analysis were used to analyse quantitative and qualitative data. Of 838 respondents (61% female, 64% domestic), 32% reported inadequate financial status. Independent predictors included international student status, Indigenous identity, disability, and living alone. Financial insecurity was associated with higher odds of perceived poor academic outcomes (OR = 5.5, 95%CI: 3.9–7.6), poor-fair self-rated health (OR = 3.0, 95%CI: 2.4–4.1), and food insecurity (OR = 8.4, 95%CI: 5.7–12.4). Awareness of financial support services was low, with dissatisfaction more common among financially insecure students (OR = 2.1, 95%CI: 1.9–4.1). Findings inform a series of recommendations for universities and policymakers to strengthen student support and address systemic drivers of financial insecurity.

Psychological predictors of financial technology adoption: The role of trust, attitude, and demographics in AI based financial ChatBots use.