FINANCES – FINancial Awareness for Citizens with Enriched Skills

October 6, 2019

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Growing financialization and complexity demands financial literacy to be an integral part of the research agenda and policy design globally. It applies particularly to developed countries, since research findings suggest that financial literacy becomes more important with higher levels of economic development. Financial literacy is financial education, such as basic economics, statistics and numeracy skills combined with the ability to employ these skills in making financial decisions.

Research has shown that as people become more financially literate, they make better saving and borrowing decisions, are more likely to plan for retirement and hold more diverse assets in their balance sheet. As more and more households are asked to make their own decisions about such issues, financial illiteracy can become a serious threat to their life-time welfare.

European Union contains in itself world’s best performers (Sweden, Denmark) as well as those that score below global average (Romania, Portugal) in financial literacy rankings. The findings for the EU echo those that are also applicable to other developed economies, namely that low-income individuals, women, young people and less educated people tend to consistently underperform in literacy tests. Financial literacy matters for the EU for three reasons:

1) in the face of rapidly ageing population, the pressure on the pension system could be mitigated through shifting towards more occupational and personal insurance systems. This shifts more and more responsibilities to the individual who can greatly enhance their decision-making with higher levels of financial literacy.

2) mortgage-debt makes up an overwhelming share of total debt of euro-area households. Understanding the implications of indebtedness and how financial literacy can help is especially important for young households, first-time homeowners and those at the lower end of the income distribution.

3) financial literacy is negatively associated with the main elements of inclusive growth in the EU, namely poverty, inequality, social exclusion and social immobility.

Financial literacy can therefore help access the benefits of economic growth and contribute to the inclusive growth agenda in the EU.

In light of these findings, the main objectives of FINANCES project are:

to cover a wide range of themes supporting the effective financial management
to engage the high potential of new technologies in the training skills
to empower disadvantaged groups with enriched knowledge on such issues

The expected results will be:

the alliance with the EU goals on inclusion, sustainability, financial integrity and prosperity for the European society TARGET GROUPS: Trainers, adult education centers, NGOs educators, local bodies and authorities, organizations, citizens FINANCES satisfies a number of Erasmus Plus objectives such as: Call 2019 Round 1 KA2 – Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices KA204 – Strategic Partnerships for adult education FormId KA204-8AB0C24F Deadline (Brussels Time) 26 Mar 2019 12:00:00 EN 4 / 149
Develop a culture of financial awareness among EU citizens
Support inclusive training initiatives and digital inclusion for all
Transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications
Development of the EU as a knowledge-based society The FINANCES and its training accredited partners will secure the recognition of skills and qualifications of FINANCES participants based on the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), and the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET).