The quest for the holy grail of financial literacy
By International Adviser, 9 Nov 17
Seven Investment Management’s Justin Urquhart-Stewart is on a personal crusade to promote financial literacy.
He sees parallels between financial professionals use of jargon and the perception in schools that maths is hard. He argues they fuel an unjustified mystique around aspects of financial planning, which is driving clients away.
Here are his four bugbears:
Stop pretending maths and personal finance are hard
“If we don’t challenge the myths about maths we perpetuate them – and the same is true of personal finance.
“In our survey earlier this year we found that one of the reasons people give for not planning for retirement properly is that they find it all too complicated: one in 10 say they don’t understand enough about pensions and it puts them off doing anything about it. It’s the classic ‘caught in the headlights’ stuff. And it is dangerous.
“If we pretend it’s all some mystery that can only be understood by the privileged few, we dissuade millions of people from making the effort to build basic numeracy and financial capability skills that are vital for healthy living.”
