If financial education has always been important, because it allows individuals, families and businesses to make informed financial choices, its importance has grown in recent years for two main reasons: the increased complexity of banking and financial products; the fact that individuals today have to deal with their savings with issues, such as social security, once entrusted to public intervention.
Up until the 80s, the banking and financial systems had remained rather stable in the configuration they had assumed in the XNUMXs, following the enactment of the banking and financial laws that had taken place in every country. The phenomena of deregulation and liberalization have instead characterized the decades closest to us. In this context, the previously existing relative simplicity has been replaced by increasingly complex banking and financial products. Suffice it, for example, to think of derivative instruments, once almost non-existent and today within the reach of any investor, or of structured finance products, or even of banking products that mix insurance and asset management services with the payment services typical of the traditional deposit. The complexity of many of these products requires levels of financial education far beyond those usually observed.
Added to this is the fact that the reduction of public intervention in the economy, especially through welfare, entrusts private savings with the answer to needs of various kinds, primarily of a social security nature but not only. Therefore, for example, the mere partial replacement of the public pension with private pension schemes requires strengthening the level of financial education of large sections of citizens. In the absence of this, a large part of the population could find itself suffering a misalignment between its concrete needs and the fruits of the financial choices made.
But how is Italy facing these challenges? A recent study by Leora Klapper and Peter van Oudheusden of the World Bank, together with Annamaria Lusardi of George Washington University, provides worrying data. In their list of 143 countries, Italy's level of financial education ranks 62nd. Our country has a score of 37 which compares with the maximum of 71 (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) and is just equal to the average value of all the countries considered, which generally have lower economic development than ours. Furthermore, restricting the comparison to only the countries of the European Union, Italy is in 24th place out of 28 countries: only Bulgaria, Cyprus, Portugal and Romania are worse than us. And, among the 19 countries of the Eurozone, we are in 17th place, followed only by Cyprus and Portugal.
Therefore, regardless of the controversies that have emerged regarding the degree of awareness in cases in which our savers have suffered losses (think of the Argentine or Parmalat bonds of many years ago or the subordinated securities of the four banks subject to resolution last November), for the country there is a problem of financial education that is inadequate for our level of development and for the challenges posed by the current context.
How to fix it? Of course, it is necessary to distinguish between a short-term and a medium-long term perspective. In the medium-long term, school at its various levels is the ideal institution in which to channel an effort to increase awareness of financial behavior from an early age. But, in the light of the unsatisfactory situation highlighted above, interventions on the adult population also seem necessary. The Italian financial system, starting with the sector Authorities (Bank of Italy and Consob) and the ABI, is already moving in this direction. It is appropriate that all banks and financial institutions do not fail to appeal.
