«Basic Financial Literacy» textbook released
At the initiative of the Bank of Russia, "Basic Financial Literacy" study pack was prepared, including the textbook, workbook and teaching guidelines. The textbook is designed to train tutors who will deliver basic financial literacy and teaching methods lessons to school teachers. Moreover, the textbook can be used by teachers to develop and prepare basic financial literacy curriculums.
The textbook was created by Alexey Goriaev, head of Masters in Finance programme of the New Economic School and Valery Tchoumatchenko, director and contributor of the "Financial Literacy" project. It was released on commission from NP SAPFIR (Community of Financial Market Professionals) in 2016. The expert group worked for two years, involving more than 40 financial experts, consultants and teachers, who analysed the manuscript and suggested edits.
The publication was funded by Moscow Exchange.
It begins with an overview of personal financial planning principles, family expenses and income, budget management and needs analysis.
A significant part of the book is concerned with savings: it describes the types of banks and presents definitions of deposit and inflation, then identifies risks related to investing money in bank deposits.
A substantial part of the book discusses lending issues: detailed information on loan, its effective interest rate and overpaid amount is given. An exemplary payment schedule is presented, as well as the difference between annuity and differentiated payments. The concepts of financial solvency and collateral are defined. The section also describes bank collectors duties and limitations of debt collections. Moreover, common mistakes related to loans are analysed.
A special chapter highlights the advantages of mobile banking and enlightens the reader about how to use the bank card and protect oneself from fraud. The textbook also includes the sections "Insurance", "Taxes" and "Pension". For those who are interested in more complex financial instruments, the types of investments are described in detail, methods of portfolio rebalancing are presented and returns on various assets are assessed. Each section ends with a case about young people managing their money in different ways.
The last part of the textbook analyses the types of financial fraud. Students will learn how to distinguish legitimate investment projects from fraudulent ones, how to protect their bank cards and avoid pyramid investment schemes and "dark lenders".
