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:
Teach financial literacy
“Obviously that starts at school, but research from the Money Advice Service earlier this year suggested that only 40% of children aged seven–17 say they have learned about managing money at school or college, and this is consistent across all age groups.
“This is shameful. I want kids to leave school able to understand how compound interest works but it’s equally crucial to be able to budget and work out, say, the best value between two different-sized packs of soap powder on the supermarket shelf.
“Given how poor we’ve been at teaching financial numeracy for so long, we need more adult education too. The recent FCA Financial Lives Survey showed that even at 55-64, only half the population have given any thought to how they will manage in retirement. Maybe employers should be offering financial literacy courses too. And we need to promote courses for the retired.”
