User Interface (UI) Design of Banks’ Web Pages and Its Influence on Fostering Financial Literacy of Users Through Informal Learning

Financial technologies are constantly changing traditional methods of delivering financial services. This puts a twofold pressure on the users: one, to gain financial knowledge, and two, to learn financial technologies to be able to make informed financial decisions. Keeping this in view, this study aimed to examine the impact of the user interface (UI) design of banks’ web pages on the development of users’ financial literacy—in particular, retention and transfer learning, in the context of informal learning. For this purpose, we conducted a study by applying the multimedia principles of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML) to the UI of a bank’s web pages. The participants (n = 37) explored the bank’s web pages, with the experimental group using web pages enhanced with multimedia principles and the control group using the original web pages of the bank. The results show that participants in the experimental group performed significantly better both in retention (t(35) = 2.19, p = 0.035) and transfer scores (t(35) = 2.2, p = 0.02). These results are significant for using the UI design of web pages to integrate and educate people on financial matters and enhance their financial well-being.