Are Vietnamese Individual Investors Financially Literate? A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This study provides a preliminary evidence on Vietnamese individual investors' financial literacy. Given most individual investors in Vietnam are unsophisticated, no known study has investigated their financial knowledge which has been found to influence their risk assessment and decision-making. A sample of Vietnamese individual investors (N=231) were recruited by convenient and snowball sampling techniques. Our results show that while most respondents demonstrate a high level of basic financial literacy, they do not appear to have much advanced financial knowledge. Notably, Vietnamese investors seem to be not confident about their financial literacy. Our study also compares financial literacy across various demographic groups. In particular, Top Executive Managers, Department Managers, and students were found to have the highest financial literacy scores compared to other jobs. Interestingly, there is not a significant difference in financial literacy between males and females, single and married investors, or across different levels of education and income.