Priorities in financial literacy development for 2022 defined
Priorities will include the digitalisation of educational products for all age groups, expanded coverage and higher involvement of target audiences, and ensuring financial consumers’ security, including their protection against fraud. Jointly with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Ministry of Education, the Bank of Russia will continue to introduce financial literacy into educational programmes. It is planned to integrate financial literacy elements into the existing educational subjects for grades
This decision was made by the Interagency Coordination Commission (ICC) at the meeting held on 28 December 2021 to discuss plans for 2022.
As noted by Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov, the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Russia have managed to arrange efficient coordination among a wide range of agencies dealing with financial literacy issues. The ICC has four boards in its organisational structure responsible for budgeting, the advancement of education, information policy, and the implementation of the Strategy for the Improvement of Financial Literacy in the Russian Federation. All regions have developed or updated their financial literacy programmes, 81 regions established dedicated coordinating authorities, and as many as 38 regions also created financial literacy centres.
‘Financial and investment literacy is one of the priorities of the Financial Market Development Strategy through 2030. Our time horizon is the year 2030,’ Anton Siluanov emphasised. ‘For all of us, this fact confirms that financial literacy is a critical component of the country’s economic success.’
The development of the plan for raising financial literacy for the period through 2030 will become one of the objectives for all members of the ICC. The plan will stipulate measures that take into account the rapid advancement of financial technologies.
A special focus of financial literacy efforts will be pensioners, people with disabilities, and orphans, as noted by Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina. ‘They are most vulnerable to fraud and unfair practice, including because they lack knowledge and skills to counter social engineering,’ she stressed. Elvira Nabiullina also considers it essential to improve investment literacy among newbie retail investors so that they act prudently. ‘We can see that many of them have conflicting or even mutually exclusive ideas about investment, including about high returns and low risks,’ Elvira Nabiullina emphasised. ‘Moreover, people find a wide variety of online training courses, whereas in reality their authors quite frequently involve learners in financial pyramids under the guise of teaching. This is why we need decisive measures and, jointly with the Financial Literacy Development Association, we take efforts to certify high-quality educational programmes’.
The Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance are committed to actively develop cooperation with the Pension Fund and the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, engaging with the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media in order to enhance digital financial literacy and cyber literacy and with the Federal Tax Service — to improve tax literacy.
The ICC was established in 2018 to coordinate the work of federal and regional authorities in the implementation of the Strategy for the Improvement of Financial Literacy for