ISO 9001:2015

INSPIRA-JOURNAL OF COMMERCE,ECONOMICS & COMPUTER SCIENCE(JCECS) [ Vol. 12 | No. 3 | July - September, 2026 ]

Robo-Advisors and Financial Inclusion: The Critical Relationship between Financial Literacy and Adoption

Smita Sharma & Prof. (Dr.) Mamta Jain

This study investigates the effect of the robo-advisors on financial inclusion, and analyzes the mediation and moderation of financial and digital literacy in the context of India. The Indian fintech space is experiencing a paradoxical situation where, while there is an increase in fintech platforms such as Groww, Kuvera and ET Money, low cost robo-advising services for inclusion are enjoyed mainly by the financially literate urban population. The primary data has been collected from people of Tier-1, Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of Rajasthan by adopting mixed method and using structured questionnaire. The six objective knowledge items and the six behavioural items were obtained to measure Financial Literacy. The data was analyzed reliability, correlation, regression and mediation-moderation. The results show that there is a positive correlation between financial literacy and the use of robo-advisors. Trust in AI and Perceived Usefulness partially mediate this relationship while Digital Literacy significantly moderates it. Moreover, the Financial Inclusion Scores of robo-advisors users are significantly higher, making robo-advisors a driver towards inclusion by making access more readily available, albeit biased and thus requiring vernacular integrated phygital models.

  1. Arner, D. W., Buckley, R. P., Zetzsche, D. A., & Veidt, R. (2020). Sustainability, FinTech and Financial Inclusion: DW Arner et al. European Business Organization Law Review, 21(1), 7-35.
  2. Belanche, D., Casaló, L. V., & Flavián, C. (2019). Artificial Intelligence in FinTech: understanding robo-advisors adoption among customers. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 119(7), 1411-1430.
  3. Isaia, E., & Oggero, N. (2022). The potential use of robo-advisors among the young generation: Evidence from Italy. Finance Research Letters, 48, 103046.
  4. de Oliveira Santini, F., Hasan Jafar, S., Junior Ladeira, W., & Rasul, T. (2026). Drivers of robo-advisors adoption in financial services: a meta-analytical study. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 44(3), 439-453.
  5. Choo, M. R., Tsai, W. C., Hsiao, Y. J., & Yang, S. S. (2023). Financial literacy and robo-advisor adoption: Evidence from Taiwan. Management Review (Taiwan), 42(4), 19-42.
  6. Brenner, L., & Meyll, T. (2020). Robo-advisors: a substitute for human financial advice? Journal of behavioral and experimental finance, 25, 100275.
  7. D’Acunto, F., Prabhala, N., & Rossi, A. G. (2019). The promises and pitfalls of robo-advising. The Review of Financial Studies, 32(5), 1983-2020.
  8. Gomber, P., Koch, J. A., & Siering, M. (2017). Digital Finance and FinTech: current research and future research directions. Journal of business economics, 87(5), 537-580.
  9. Jung, D., Dorner, V., Glaser, F., & Morana, S. (2018). Robo-advisory: digitalization and automation of financial advisory. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 60(1), 81-86.
  10. Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2014). The economic importance of financial literacy: Theory and evidence. Journal of economic literature, 52(1), 5-44.
  11. National Centre for Financial Education. (2020). NCFE financial literacy and inclusion survey 2019-20.
  12. OECD/INFE. (2022). OECD/INFE toolkit for measuring financial literacy and financial inclusion 2022. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/financial/education/2022-INFE-Toolkit.pdf
  13. Panos, G. A., & Wilson, J. O. (2020). Financial literacy and responsible finance in the FinTech era: capabilities and challenges. The European Journal of Finance, 26(4-5), 297-301.
  14. Reher, M., & Sokolinski, S. (2024). Robo advisors and access to wealth management. Journal of Financial Economics, 155, 103829.
  15. Reserve Bank of India. (2023). Financial inclusion index 2023. RBI Bulletin.

DOI:

Article DOI:

DOI URL:


Download Full Paper:

Download