Financial Literacy Survey

The OECD/INFE is a leading a five-year (2018-2022) Technical Assistance Project for Financial Education in the Constituency Program of the Ministry of Finance of the Netherlands. The main objective of the OECD/INFE is to provide policymakers with guidance to establish an efficient financial education strategy as a complement to appropriate consumer protection and financial inclusion.

With this goal in mind, and in order to support countries to achieve concrete measurable improvements in financial literacy, the OECD/INFE carries out a regular survey of financial literacy competencies. This helps participating countries to establish/improve financial education strategies at national level as well as to benchmark their progress against that of other countries.

ACT assessed the adult population with respect to its prevailing levels of financial knowledge, attitudes and behavior as well as levels of financial inclusion, and indicators of financial well-being. This allowed ACT to gauge the current level of financial literacy within different target groups and to track changes across different populations to see how these compared with other countries.

Data collection activities performed entailed the obtaining of nationally representative samples across seven countries of the Dutch Constituency Program: Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, the Republic of North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, and Romania.

The study results have been used:

• To improve the financial literacy levels across targeted countries;
• To support the development of effective financial empowerment policies and explore further the differences in financial literacy according to gender, age, social background, as well as financial well-being and consumer protection; and
• To support the design and/or improvement of the national strategy for financial education and to measure its effectiveness.