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Article History

Received: 17 September 2024

Accepted: 24 June 2025

First Online: 14 July 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: This study did not involve direct experimentation on human participants. Survey participants were fully informed about the nature and purpose of the research, with assurances of anonymity. All responses were handled in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU Regulation 2016/679) and Ghent University’s Generic Code of Conduct for the processing of personal data and confidential information. Their participation was voluntary, and they were informed of how their data would be used. The use of pseudonymized bank transaction data complies with the bank’s general terms and conditions, which include client consent for the use of data in scientific research. The study did not require ethical approval from the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Ghent University. This waiver of ethical approval was confirmed by the Ethics Committee on 2 June 2025.

: First, survey participants had to provide explicit consent at the start of the survey, and without doing so, they were unable to proceed. Participants were shown the terms of participation, which explained that their anonymous responses could be used for research purposes, including the possibility of sharing the data with other researchers and stakeholders, as well as making the data available online. Participants had to confirm their consent by ticking a box stating “yes” in response to the statement: “I have read and agree to these terms and conditions”. Informed consent was thus obtained during the period the surveys were open, which ranged from 9 November 2022 to 12 January 2023. Second, the use of pseudonymized bank transaction data complies with the bank’s general terms and conditions. Bank clients consent to the use of their data in scientific research upon becoming a bank client.