Title: E-Wallet Usage and Impulsive Spending among Vietnamese High School Students: Behavioral-Economic Mechanisms and the Educational Imperative of Perceived Digital Financial Literacy
Authors: Nguyen Vo Xuan An, Nguyen Thi Thuy Ngan
Volume: 10
Issue: 6
Pages: 49-55
Publication Date: 2026/06/28
Abstract:
Digital payments offer substantial convenience but may lower barriers to overspending for adolescent users. This study examines that risk from two complementary perspectives: a behavioral-economic account of the underlying mechanisms and an educational account of how it might be mitigated. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) paradigm, the study analyzes how e-wallet usage relates to impulsive spending among 315 high school students in Vietnam and how perceived digital financial literacy (PDFL), conceptualized as a teachable competence reflecting subjective financial confidence, conditions that relationship. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), e-wallet usage is found to be significantly and positively associated with impulsive spending. Two mechanisms partially mediate this association-a reduced pain of paying and a mental accounting bias-indicating that digital payment makes costs less psychologically salient. PDFL exhibits a significant but modest protective moderating effect, weakening the link between e-wallet usage and impulsive spending. Taken together, the behavioral-economic and educational findings suggest that risks generated by frictionless payment technology can be mitigated, in part, by competencies that schools can cultivate. Because the data are cross-sectional and drawn from a non-probability urban sample, the results are interpreted as associations rather than causal effects and may not generalize to rural students. The findings have implications for curriculum design, particularly the integration of transaction-risk awareness and digital budgeting into school-based financial education, as well as for parents and for the responsible design of FinTech products.