Beyond Transactions: Building Customer Loyalty and Brand Value Cocreation in Vietnamese Financial Apps

Abstract

Enterprises and consumers prefer digital financial product selection through financial app platforms, making Fintech one of the fastest-growing industries. Thus, the study uses gamification’s perceived value and uses and gratification theory to build a research model that examines how hedonic value, utilitarian value, social interaction, binge-playing, and convenient navigability affect customer loyalty and brand value cocreation towards financial app platforms through confirmation and engagement. This study examined data from 330 online questionnaire respondents using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and artificial neural network (ANN) methods to reveal linear and nonlinear interactions. Utilitarian value, hedonic value, social interaction, and binge-playing increase customer confirmation and engagement, boosting financial app platform customer loyalty and brand value cocreation. ANN analysis shows customer engagement affects brand value cocreation more than customer confirmation. Gamification and uses and gratification theories are combined to study customer confirmation and engagement. This study also provides novel theoretical contributions in Fintech and social science behavior literature and managerial implications for financial app managers.