Digital financial literacy and trust in hybrid AI advisory: Explaining perceived private wealth management capability among digitally engaged retail investors in an emerging market

Minh Tu Tran and Marie Paseková

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 10, 1-37

Abstract: This study investigates how digital financial literacy, perceived transparency of artificial intelligence advisory services, investment and wealth knowledge, and cyber-risk self-protection shape Perceived Private Wealth Management Capability (PWMC) among digitally engaged retail investors in an emerging-market context. PWMC is conceptualized as a self-assessed capability outcome rather than an objective indicator of wealth-management performance, portfolio returns, or private-banking status. Drawing on the financial capability framework, trust in automation theory, and protection motivation theory, the study develops a trust-to-capability model in which trust in hybrid artificial intelligence advisory and digital wealth management behavior serves as a key explanatory mechanism. A non-probability sample of 249 digitally engaged retail investors in Vietnam was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling in SmartPLS 4.1, with 5,000 bootstrap subsamples. The results show that digital financial literacy is the strongest antecedent of trust in hybrid artificial intelligence advisory (β = 0.517, p

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0353922

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0353922

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