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How Financially Literate is your Country?

Education | December 19, 2015
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Excel Sheet

McGraw Hill Financial (which owns S&P), the World Bank, and Gallup have produced the S&P Global Financial Literacy Survey, which attempted to get an idea of how financially literate the world is by polling 150,000 adults in more than 140 countries.

The results were quite terrifying - two in three adults worldwide are financially illiterate. Even if you just consider rich OECD-member countries, the percentage of financially literates only rises from 33% to 53%.

Respondents were considered financially literate if they were able to correctly answer three of the four really simple questions about inflation, risk and interest. Numeracy and inflation are the most understood concepts. Risk diversification is the least understood concept

Globally, 35% of men are financially literate, compared with 30% of women. Gender gaps are present in most countries, even in highly developed ones.

Scandinavian countries have the highest financial literacy rates globally, with Norway, Denmark and Sweden each at 71%. 

Yemen (13%), Albania (14%) and Afghanistan (14%) are the least financially literate countries worldwide with fewer than one in seven people having even a basic grasp of finance.