Decoding financial behaviour through cognitive and digital pathways: A hybrid SEM–ANN study among Indian working women

This study investigates the influence of financial literacy on the financial behavior of female urban workers in India, with a focus on the mediating role of risk perception and the use of digital financial services (DFS). Grounded in the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework, financial literacy is conceptualized as a cognitive stimulus that shapes people’s perceptions of risk and confidence in engaging in digital platforms, which in turn translate into various financial behaviors. We administered a structured questionnaire to 564 female workers in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) using purposive and snowball sampling and analyzed the data using a hybrid approach that combined partial least squares–structural equation model (PLS-SEM) and artificial neural networks (ANN). Our results confirm that financial literacy increases financial behavior both directly and indirectly through mediators such as risk perception and DFS use. This comprehensive multidimensional model contributes to the growing literature on financial literacy and offers actionable implications for creating targeted financial literacy and digital trust-building initiatives to foster women’s financial empowerment in emerging economies.