The crisis in the economy has sharply undermined the ability of citizens to accumulate and invest funds. Most private investors do not feel secure in market conditions. And yet, sociological studies have shown that in recent years, both people's awareness of the world of finance and financial culture in general have increased. What is the meaning of this concept?
The concept of "financial culture" is much broader than the concept of "financial literacy". It assumes that a person not only has the necessary special knowledge, but also has a responsible attitude towards finances, has the skills to form a personal budget, and knows how to manage it. Experts consider a sufficient level of financial culture to be one of the main conditions for the stable development of society, a guarantee of the well-being of every citizen.
A person with a financial culture has an idea of what processes are taking place in the modern economy, how money circulation works, how inflation affects the life of society, how to correctly verify the authenticity of banknotes or protect yourself from fraudsters. Armed with knowledge and financially cultured, a citizen is able, independently or with the help of a special credit or deposit calculator, to calculate the possible income from a certificate of deposit, debt or tax burden on the family budget.
In recent years, the Russian state has begun to pay more attention to the formation of a financial culture among citizens, including this issue in its list of priorities. The difficulty lies in the fact that the population of Russia differs greatly in the level of knowledge and its financial capabilities. According to surveys, about half of Russians consider their knowledge in the financial sphere to be insufficient and unsatisfactory. Moreover, even the presence of a high economic status and the corresponding formal education cannot serve as a guarantee that the financial culture of such a citizen is formed. Special programs to promote financial literacy and culture come to the rescue.
In August 2017, the Bank of Russia announced the commissioning of a new resource called Financial Culture. This site is intended for the widest audience with different levels of education and financial capabilities. The creators of the project were faced with the task of examining in an extremely simple form the situations that absolutely everyone can face. The range of such issues includes, in particular, the need to take out a loan, choose the optimal form of accumulation of funds, find a reliable strategy for the formation of a future pension or investment.
University professors, methodologists and volunteers with experience in financial management are directly involved in the work on improving the financial culture. Their joint activities are not advisory in nature, but have purely educational goals. The situations considered in the course of training often contain simplifications and free assumptions, which helps not to drown in the sea of special terms and allows you to get an extremely general idea of the essence of a particular phenomenon in the world of finance.
The organizers of this resource believe that the Financial Culture website will be useful not only for consumers who are faced with the task of choosing a particular financial service, but also for those who intend to understand the structure and principles of the financial market.
