IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION IN STOCK BROKING APPLICATIONS ON RETAIL INVESTOR PARTICIPATION

Abstract

Incorporating technology and stock-broking applications affects retail investors' participation in the stock market. This study is organized in four technology-related explanatory constructs; Platform Efficiency; Analytical Tools; Security & Risk Concerns; Educational Support; and one dependent construct, Investor Participation. Technology acceptance, digital finance adoption, perceived risk, and financial capability, as theoretical perspectives, lead to a better understanding of platform design and feature quality as primary determinants of real market participation. Primary data was obtained by utilizing a 5-point questionnaire format of Likert-type response scales, and 104 valid survey responses remained to be processed for the evaluation. The analytic tool encompassed respondent profile analysis, descriptive statistics, item-level analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson correlation, multiple regression, independent-samples t test, one-way ANOVA, and Tukey post-hoc comparison. The outcome showed that Investor Participation is relatively high overall (mean = 4.034), Analytical Tools (4.029), Educational Support (4.013) and Platform Efficiency (3.769). There is a moderate level of Security & Risk Concerns (3.315), which means that respondents have high awareness of digital risks, yet do not let these come to eclipse their own investing behaviour. Across all constructs, the reliability is good or moderate, with the Cronbach’s alpha for each variable in the range of 0.722 to 0.887. All the explanatory constructs relate positively to Investor Participation. The strongest bivariate correlation (r = 0.675) appears with Analytical Tools. Platform Efficiency (p = 0.0049), Analytical Tools (p = 0.0004), and Educational Support (p = 0.0394) are positive and significant predictors of Investor Participation, while Security & Risk Concerns (p = 0.8957) are statistically insignificant when combined. The model overall accounts for 52.3 percent of the variance in Investor Participation and is robust. Overall, there is no statistical significance observed across the group-wise tests with respect to differences in gender, age, educational level, monthly income, and time in investments. While statistically insignificant within one trade type, it is notable in that discount brokers engage more people than do bank-app participants. The study reveals that the participation of retail investors in today's markets does not depend as much on the accessibility of digital-based resources as on decision support, efficiency, and embedded learning support.