Type of the article: Research Article
Abstract
This study investigates how financial innovation, financial behavior, and accounting knowledge influence investment decisions, with fintech security tested as a moderating variable. The research focuses on 250 small enterprise owners in Indonesia, allowing for robust path analysis. Purposive sampling was used to ensure participants were active non-professional investors with comparable business scale and digital financial exposure. These enterprises operate primarily in trade, services, and light manufacturing, with annual turnover below IDR 2.5 billion, aligning with Indonesia’s official SME classification. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data for analysis through Structural Equation Modeling (WarpPLS). This analysis indicated that financial innovation (β = 0.383, p = 0.001), accounting knowledge (β = 0.311, p = 0.001), and financial behavior (β = 0.131, p = 0.010) were all positively and significantly related to investment decisions. Fintech security (β = 0.326, p = 0.001) was a direct predictor of investment decisions, and also positively moderated both financial innovation (β = 0.182, p = 0.002) and accounting knowledge (β = 0.166, p = 0.028) on investment decisions. However, fintech security did not significantly moderate financial behavior. These results suggest that technological capability through fintech solutions, financial literacy, and platform security were significant elements affecting investment strategies for small business owners. In terms of policy implications, strict measures should be undertaken in developing features and architecture to scheme out insecurity with technological innovation, improving the accounting literacy of investors, and encouraging the use of innovations to enhance the investment decision quality of small business owners.