Following our story on Wednesday 29 October 2003 regarding the next stage of consumer education plans for the Financial Services Authority, survey results from Prudential have been released.
The survey undertaken concerned financial literacy and how well the general public coped with their finances. According to the results, almost 90% of respondents agreed that more education was needed for consumers to help them understand the world of finance and what it means to them.
Almost 70% of respondents apparently felt they had not received sufficient education to let them confidently deal with their own personal finances. But, in a contradictory result, only 7% of respondents felt totally reliant on others for help with finances.
Another 78% felt confident to deal with most or all of their own finances.
Apparently, one quarter of respondents with pensions or endowments did not realise that at least some of their investment was linked to the stock market.
Our View
We would wholeheartedly agree that many people saving into pensions have no idea that their pension fund is at least linked in some way to stocks and shares. But, we would not agree with the finding that almost 80% of people questioned felt confident to deal with all or most of their financial affairs.
This was possibly just a reply for the survey with people not wanting to appear naive about money.
As we mentioned in the previous article, consumer education is vital. Whilst finance topics have been entered onto the National Curriculum, it is still not compulsory in schools.
We believe that in order to educate people properly, the subject of finance should be a compulsory subject.