Education has significant implications for the economic prosperity of every individual, community, and nation. Education allows us to accumulate knowledge and develop the skills necessary to become active citizens in society. The governments of many countries included education as an absolute priority in their programs, and the United Nations has included it in the central Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. The importance of approaching financial education as a research area grew with the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 and currently represents one of the main objectives of educational reforms at the international level. Suddenly, the need to educate people to make correct and well-informed decisions grew and financial institutions developed their role in educating people of all ages, considering the possibility of enhancing financial inclusion. Thus, international and national institutions, organizations, academia, and practitioners created programs to improve people's financial skills and literacy.
Top1. Background
Having, as a milestone, the definition of OECD for financial education is “the process by which financial consumers/investors improve their understanding of financial products, concepts, and risks and, through information, instruction and/or objective advice, develop the skills and confidence to become more aware of financial risks and opportunities, to make informed choices, to know where to go for help, and to take other effective actions to improve their financial well-being” (OECD, 2005, Atkinson and Messy, 2012), in a widely accepted sense, financial education is defined as a complex of activities that ensure both the acquisition by the target audience of a certain level of knowledge in the financial field (considered desirable at a given time) and the acquisition/training, respectively refinement of the attitude and behaviors of economic actors (households and companies) regarding the economic and financial challenges.
Financial education represents an important pillar that is the basis of the harmonious development of society in general, particularly the Romanian one, which has been given far too little attention until now. In this context, the involvement of the financial-banking institutions, especially the National Bank of Romania, in supporting efforts to increase all citizens' education levels becomes even more important. Their role is already significant and will continue to be visible in various actions, projects, and programs implemented at the national level.
In recent years, we can see an increase in the variety of banking products and services intended for the public and implicitly a considerable need for presentation, information, and explanation of news, but also for educating the public to access a banking product/service. The banks in Romania have understood how important it is to be actively involved in the market to increase each individual's financial education level, regardless of their activity, and have implemented a series of financial education projects. Thus, it was possible to observe numerous positive opinions of the participants regardless of age or socio-professional category; they reached a higher and deeper level of knowledge.
Digitization and innovation increase the diversity and complexity of financial services, all the more so now requiring an increase in financial education. Most consumers need to become more familiar with reading a credit contract or the financial products on the market. The lack of understanding of financial-banking instruments and products leads to a low level of their use, such as digital services. There is thus a large discrepancy between the quality of access to various digital networks and the excellent connectivity (Romania adopting the 5 G system) and, on the other hand, the shallow degree of use of digital financial services that comes from ignorance of their characteristics and distrust.
Although financial education has been a priority of government programs in recent years, with several campaigns and public information programs being developed, the level of mediation and training in the financial sphere remains modest.
The main arguments to demonstrate the need for financial education are related to several key issues relating to:
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contemporary consumer pressures and trends (especially among young people), which, combined with limited experience in using financial instruments, can generate behaviors and attitudes that undermine the ability to save and implicitly protect against financial risks;
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the increasing complexity of financial products and services, more easily accessible than in the past, especially due to the digital revolution, which can lead to the amplification of the negative effects of risks assumed without adequate financial education;
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the necessity to protect users of financial products against situations of over-indebtedness in the event of unforeseen and exogenous economic and/or financial crises (crises becoming more frequent, more virulent, and wildly unpredictable);
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the constant exposure to a multitude of knowledge with impact on citizens' behavior in managing personal finances, including asymmetric information, which may lead to additional disadvantages for vulnerable groups.