Promoting Financial Inclusion through Financial Education

This paper studies the policy level approaches and practical solutions currently used to harness the benefits of financial education as a complement to financial consumer protection. The paper states that there is widespread interest in identifying efficient practices and in scaling up current financial education provision in order to reduce the extent to which individuals face exclusion from financial products and services in both developed and developing economies. It finds that:

• Joined-up approach of stakeholders and policies is necessary to support financial education;
• Young people are an important target group, and efforts should be made to collect more data on the financial literacy of young people as well as their demand for financial products and product use;
• Identification of trusted intermediaries is necessary in implementing financial education policies;
• Effective financial education strategies for financial inclusion need to overcome a number of barriers, and may need to be combined with direct access to appropriate products;
• Attention is to be directed to the needs and preferences of different target groups in order to fully meet their needs.