Preferences over New Digital Financial Products: Evidence from a Cross-Country Survey Experiment

Last registered on September 21, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Preferences over New Digital Financial Products: Evidence from a Cross-Country Survey Experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019672
Initial registration date
September 08, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 21, 2026, 8:04 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

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Primary Investigator

Name
Yoshiyuki Nakazono
Affiliation
Yokohama City University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Jun Takahashi
PI Affiliation
Yokohama City University
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PI Name
Kento Tango
PI Affiliation
Yokohama City University
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PI Name
Yoshiyuki Nakazono
PI Affiliation
Yokohama City University
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PI Name
Minoru Masujima
PI Affiliation
SBI Financial and Economic Research Institute Co., Ltd.
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PI Name
Ryoichi Namba
PI Affiliation
SBI Financial and Economic Research Institute Co., Ltd.
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-10-01
End date
2026-10-31
Keywords
Behavior, Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We conduct a survey experiment on household demand for new digital financial products in Japan and the United States. Despite the rapid growth of these products, little is known about which product characteristics households actually value, or how beliefs about risk shape those valuations. We field an online survey to approximately 22,000 respondents aged 20-79 (16,000 in Japan, 6,000 in the United States), oversampling current holders of new digital financial products in Japan. The survey elicits awareness, investment experience, holdings and portfolio shares for both conventional and new digital financial products, together with financial literacy, risk preferences, time preferences, and measures of budgeting and financial planning. Embedded in the survey is a randomized information-provision experiment: respondents are randomly assigned either to a control condition or to one of two conditions in which they receive brief factual information before completing a repeated stated-preference choice task over hypothetical products whose characteristics are randomly varied. We estimate how product characteristics map into stated demand, how randomly assigned information shifts those valuations, and how both vary with respondent characteristics and across the two countries.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Masujima, Minoru et al. 2026. "Preferences over New Digital Financial Products: Evidence from a Cross-Country Survey Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. September 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19672-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Within an online survey, respondents are randomly assigned to one of three conditions immediately before a repeated stated-preference choice task over hypothetical new digital financial products. The control group receives no additional information. Each of the two treatment groups receives a short, factually accurate statement about a different source of risk relevant to holding such products, displayed once, immediately before the choice task and repeated in the task instructions. All other survey content, including the choice task itself, is identical across the three conditions. The intervention is delivered on screen by the survey firm as part of the questionnaire; there is no follow-up contact with respondents.
Intervention Start Date
2026-10-01
Intervention End Date
2026-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The first primary estimand is the average marginal component effect of each randomly varied product characteristic on the probability that a profile is chosen.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Cross-sectional online survey experiment fielded simultaneously in Japan and the United States. Respondents aged 20-79 are drawn from online panels with sex and age quotas matching population proportions; in Japan, 6,000 of the 16,000 respondents are separately screened on current holdings of new digital financial products. After background modules on holdings, financial literacy and preferences, respondents read a standardised product explanation, are randomly assigned to one of three information conditions, and complete 14 binary choice tasks between two hypothetical products whose characteristics are randomly drawn, with levels randomised independently across tasks.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is performed by computer by the survey platform at the time of survey administration. Each respondent is randomly assigned to one of the three information conditions. Within the choice tasks, the level of each product characteristic is drawn independently and uniformly at random for each profile, in each of the 14 tasks, for each respondent.
Randomization Unit
Individual respondent for assignment to the information conditions. Product profile within respondent-task for the randomly varied product characteristics.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
22,000 individual respondents (Japan 16,000; United States 6,000).
Sample size: planned number of observations
308,000 respondent-task binary choices (22,000 respondents × 14 choice tasks), corresponding to 616,000 product profiles.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Respondents are allocated equally across the three information conditions: the control condition, which receives no additional information, and the two treatment conditions. In Japan, the 16,000 respondents are split into approximately 5,333 per condition; in the United States, the 6,000 respondents are split into 2,000 per condition. This gives approximately 7,333 respondents per condition across the two countries. Since each respondent completes 14 choice tasks, each condition yields approximately 102,667 respondent-task observations.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
SBI Financial and Economic Research Institute Co., Ltd.
IRB Approval Date
2026-09-03
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan