Economic financial literacy is a key skill to achieve an active citizenship and to improve financial wellbeing, in a challenging environment. Financially-literate people budget, save, control spending better; handle mortgage, participate in financial markets, moving from basic financial skills to a more complex wealth management know how. The latter is thus vital for low income groups to prevent them from crossing the poverty line and to achieve a better standard of living. Research highlights how: -Financial illiteracy is widespread in almost all countries, including FinKit’s -Financial knowledge is highest among the 45 ‐ to 55 year olds -Gender differences are still significant, due to persistent cultural&societal causes At the same time, low income households are often overlooked by financial institutions (in terms of access to information, counseling and products): the result is a vicious circle of financial exclusion. FinKit will focus its action on poor elderly and middle age women. If, according to the traditional lifecycle model, people borrow when young, save when middle aged and dissave when old, in reality the rate of wealth decumulation is slower. Less financially literate seniors tend to overlook the financial tools available to manage wealth and retirement, and show a distorted confidence in their financial decision making skills. A specific segment is made by “house rich, cash poor” elderly (home ownership in South EU accounts for ca. 80% of personal wealth) whose assets are mainly tied to housing, and living in “self-inflicted poverty”. The second subgroup - middle age women- need wealth management skills for a combination of labour -and demography- related reasons (shorter working life, lower average incomes, higher life expectancy than men, primary caregivers for children). Evidence shows how women are a hard-to-reach group, due to work/social obligations, financial attitudes and a still surviving social segregation. To cater for end users EFL needs, educational initiatives are wanted, addressed to formal and informal trainers/coaches, belonging both to the formal training system and to the no profit sector [TARGET GROUP], who deal with people at risk of financial exclusion. Such practitioners - relying on the strong trust relationship built with these and on the knowledge of their (economic and social) background– will be EFL first level trainers. FinKit NEED AND OBJECTIVE 1 There is a NEED: - for a common vision for EFL: trainers/coachers/volunteers, programme developers, policy makers, local development agencies, financial players must gain a shared understanding of the issue, and learn to work in a “whole community approach”. - for research to better frame beneficiaries’ needs and develop effective programmes. FinKit will identify the key evaluation criteria for already existing EFL initiatives (including their delivery mechanisms - e.g. language, timing, learning environments) to define the best ways to reach the financial excluded and allow a more constructive use of resources. FinKit will provide deeper insight of end users’ needs and behaviors by analyzing the influences on financial decision making (e.g. environmental; social; economical; personal) and the strategies that could promote a more sustainable savings behavior among vulnerable consumers. FinKit NEED AND OBJECTIVE 2 There is a NEED for a continuous development of practitioners, by: a) understanding their demands and capitalizing on their expertise b) improving their EFL competencies c) providing tailored training sets FinKit will: a) design tools (booklets, videos, interactive games) to convey specific skills to practictioners, increasing their capacity to transfer EFL knowledge b) test new delivery means c) promote learned-centred pedagogical tools, aware of social& cultural diversity. From here, the focus on Mediterranean countries and selected end users FinKit brings together players (from ES, F, I, PT) with different backgrounds, missions and social focus: 2 research centres, 1 no profit foundation, a national training association, a higher education establishment. All have a sound experience in tackling the broad issue of EFL at academic level, as applied research (and pilot projects), and through training/ coaching actions with vulnerable groups. The 2 organizations linked directly with end users with will play a specific role by a) fine-tuning research topics, training priorities and measures’ design, b) offering a qualitative understanding of local beneficiaries and trainers. FinKit potential medium term impact is justified by partners capacity to sustain EFL (research and training) initiatives beyond the project lifetime and the project boundaries, by sharing core findings with a significant number of local and international stakeholders (e.g. public administrations, foundations, adult education practitioners, local development agencies & no profit associations, academia and financial institutions).
Economic-Financial Literacy (FL) and sensible wealth management are core basic skills key to improve personal financial wellbeing and achieve a more active citizenship. Mastering these set of skills may be crucial for low-income groups, helping them to achieve a better standard of living and avoid crossing the poverty line. The importance of financial education programs, in particular those targeted to low-income groups, is widely recognized by Governments and international organizations. FinKit aims at improving FL by developing specific tools, targeted to poor elderly (male and female over 65), and middle age women (55+) - single or head of an household - to increase the capacity of practitioners, such as educators, coaches, volunteers, local development agencies, to successfully transfer financial knowledge to individuals at risk, with a particular focus on the specific segment of population made by “house rich, cash poor” elderly. The study was carried out by a network of Eu institutions: CeRP-Collegio Carlo Alberto (leading institution, research centre, Italy); Observatoire de l'Epargne Européenne (OEE, no profit association, France); Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal (IPS; academic institution, Portugal); Spanish Confederation of Education Centres (CECE, Spain), Ufficio Pio della Compagnia di San Paolo (No profit institution, Italy), Turin Savings Museum (local partner). The team reached the project objectives by: • exploring the needs and characteristics of the older and more vulnerable, the existing financial education initiatives/tools in the partners’ countries, and the products and initiatives tailored to vulnerable consumers available in the market • producing a set of financial education tools, to be used as a support for social operators to approach and successfully transfer financial knowledge to individuals at risk • opening a table with local associations working with group at risk, to explore the expectations and needs of social operators in being carriers of financial education actions, as well as to survey the characteristics of the target groups affected by the education activities The Intellectual Ouputs of the project consist of: • FinKit Evaluation Map: tools for the assessment and delivery of financial education programmes targeted to elderly and women 55+ • Study: Influences on financial decision making of the elderly and women 55+, reached through surveys obtained gathering information and data from stakeholders and end users • Study: Financial inclusion - products and initiatives tailored to vulnerable consumers, focusing not only on their analysis, but also on their true accessibility and the legislative and market limitations/barriers • A set of 5 booklets, collected in the series “It is never too late. Financial education for older people” • 2 videos, to reinforce the understanding of a selection of financial concepts • The web app SIMCO, meant to show in a simplified way how the spending capacity can be increased by exploiting a share of the "illiquid" wealth • 5 FinKit Bites, short factsheets aimed at turning the key findings of the project into concrete recommendations. The impact of FinKit can be measured by its effectiveness in: - increasing the awareness of the importance of financial literacy and education, even at older ages, to help individuals at risk make informed decisions when saving and possibly avoid financial exclusion; raising greater awareness of the existing financial literacy gaps - increasing the awareness of the importance of teaching financial literacy to groups at risk through a mediate delivery of content, and thus of the crucial role played by formal/informal trainers of the no profit sector in transferring financial literacy - improving the operators’ FL competencies and increase their capacity to transfer FL, by providing the operators with: a better knowledge of their assisted population; a better knowledge of the more effective systems to convey financial literacy skills; a better knowledge of the existing initiatives/products tailored to vulnerable consumers; new targeted teaching instruments A key achievement of FinKit was the great impact on local operators involved in the project. We believe that the project will be able to affect the existing financial education initiatives: the booklets, videos and app constitute very useful non-commercial resources to enhance the transmission of financial basic skills and can serve as basis for the development of new, targeted tools. All the reports, factsheets and tools produced in FinKit will remain available on the FinKit website. We think that the outcome of FinKit will be able to stimulate further initiatives, as the need for innovative methodologies and instruments for effective financial education is becoming stronger and stronger, as institutions gain awareness of the role of EFL in improving individual wealth management and preventing financial fragility.