Purpose This study explores how students' engagement with financial technologies influences their entrepreneurial intentions, focussing on the mediating role of attitude toward FinTech entrepreneurship. It integrates cognitive and affective dimensions to explain the psychological drivers of technology-based entrepreneurship and offers insights for strengthening FinTech education and fostering innovation-driven entrepreneurship. Drawing on the stimulus organism response framework, alongside the theory of planned behaviour and the technology acceptance model. Design/methodology/approach The study surveys 184 polytechnic students in Northeast Nigeria and analyzed the data using PLS-SEM to examine how FinTech knowledge and technologies influence attitudes and intentions toward FinTech entrepreneurship. Findings The findings reveal that students' FinTech knowledge and positive attitudes toward FinTech applications significantly mediated their entrepreneurial intentions, indicating that integrating FinTech literacy and practical training into polytechnic education could enhance students' readiness for FinTech entrepreneurship within Nigeria's digital economy. Research limitations/implications The study uses a cross-sectional design, focused on polytechnic students in Northeast Nigeria and relies on self-reported data, which may affect causal interpretation and generalizability. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs and broader samples for wider applicability. Practical implications Embedding experiential FinTech education, supportive regulatory policies, industry collaboration and improved digital infrastructure is essential to foster positive entrepreneurial attitudes and enable scalable, youth-driven FinTech ventures. Originality/value This study uniquely examines how FinTech knowledge influences entrepreneurial intention among polytechnic students in Nigeria, an understudied and vocationally focused group. It introduces a theoretically grounded mediator to explain this relationship and offers insights for enhancing entrepreneurship education and FinTech literacy in emerging economies.
Geidam et al. (Fri,) studied this question.