Is your financial literacy up to standard？ Central bank survey： consumers should save enough for unexpected expenses

　　BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua)-On the 31st, official website, the central bank, released the "Brief Report on Consumer Financial Literacy Survey in 2019" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). According to the survey,Consumers need to strengthen their financial behavior, and have a good performance in reading contract terms, saving for children’s schooling, and password protection when using ATM; The planning and implementation of family expenses, the understanding of statements and the repayment of credit cards need to be further strengthened, and there are generally shortcomings in dealing with unexpected expenses.

　　In 2019, the Financial Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the People’s Bank of China conducted a questionnaire survey on consumers’ financial literacy for the second time. 600 financial consumers were randomly selected from each provincial administrative unit for the questionnaire survey, with a total of 18,600 samples nationwide. The survey comprehensively and qualitatively analyzes the financial literacy of Chinese consumers from the perspectives of consumers’ attitudes, behaviors, knowledge and skills.

　　The overall financial literacy of consumers has improved slightly.

　　According to the report, the survey report obtains the national consumer financial literacy score by constructing the consumer financial literacy index. The results show that the average score of the national consumer financial literacy index is 64.77, the median is 67.96, and the standard deviation is 17.01. The consumer financial literacy index is approximately normal distribution.

　　Compared with 2017, the overall financial literacy of consumers has improved slightly. Education, income, region, age and occupation are significantly related to consumers’ financial literacy scores, while gender has limited influence on financial literacy scores.

　　What kind of financial knowledge are consumers most interested in?

　　According to the report, from the perspective of consumers’ attitude, the overall situation of consumers’ financial attitude is good. Most groups can realize the importance of popularizing financial knowledge and carrying out financial education on campus, and pay more attention to personal credit; The willingness to delay consumption is slightly decreased (or more inclined to immediate consumption), among which full-time students have the lowest willingness to delay consumption.

　　From the perspective of consumer behavior, the overall financial behavior of consumers needs to be strengthened, and they have good performance in reading contract terms, saving for children’s schooling, and password protection when using ATM. The planning and implementation of family expenses, the understanding of statements and the repayment of credit cards need to be further strengthened, and there are generally shortcomings in dealing with unexpected expenses.

　　Judging from the level of consumers’ financial knowledge, consumers have a certain grasp of financial knowledge as a whole, and the correct rates of bank cards, savings and credit knowledge are higher, all exceeding 60%;The knowledge level of loans, investment and insurance needs to be improved, and there are great differences in the mastery of various financial knowledge among different groups.

　　From the perspective of consumers’ financial skills, on the whole, consumers have a relatively good grasp of the rights and obligations of financial contracts, product risks and benefits, and the handling of counterfeit money, and have a certain grasp of distinguishing illegal investment products and channels and comparing financial products and services; However, the function of crown number and the use of bank cards need to be strengthened, and the level of mastering the anti-counterfeiting features of the new version of RMB needs to be improved.

　　Judging from consumers’ demand for financial knowledge, the five categories of financial knowledge that consumers are most interested in are bank cards (including debit cards and credit cards), bank wealth management products, housing loans, fund stock investment, mobile banking and other electronic banking services.

　　According to the analysis of the report, from the demographic characteristics, different groups of consumers have great differences in financial attitudes, financial knowledge, financial behavior, financial skills and financial knowledge needs.

　　The average correct rate of credit knowledge has risen.

　　According to the report, consumers have a certain grasp of financial knowledge as a whole, and the correct rates of bank cards, savings and credit knowledge are higher, all exceeding 60%The knowledge level of loans, investment and insurance needs to be improved, and there are great differences among different groups in their mastery of various financial knowledge.

　　Among them, the consumer credit knowledge survey includes five questions. On the whole, the average correct rate of consumers is 71.15%. In terms of knowledge points, when investigating whether consumers know personal credit reports, 81.44% of consumers answered yes; When further investigating whether consumers know which institution to inquire about personal credit report, 73.36% of consumers answered correctly; When investigating whether consumers know the influence of bad credit records, 76.42% of consumers answered correctly. When further investigating whether consumers know the retention period of bad records, 58.88% of consumers answered correctly. When investigating whether consumers know that they can file an objection to the error of credit report, 65.64% of consumers answered yes.

　　According to the report, compared with 2017, the average correct rate of consumers’ credit knowledge increased by 6.66%, among which the average correct rate of knowledge about understanding credit reports, inquiring about credit reports, the impact of bad records, the retention period of bad records, and objection applications increased by 7.82%, 9.68%, 3.31%, 9.55%, and 2.95% respectively.

　　Through this survey, the report draws the following conclusions: First, the changes of consumers’ financial literacy should be continuously tracked to provide an important basis for the overall development of financial education; Second, we should continue to pay attention to the financial literacy level of key groups and regions, carry out appropriate financial education activities in combination with group characteristics, focus on improving consumers’ financial knowledge and skills, and improve consumers’ financial behavior; Third, we should actively respond to the challenges brought by digital technology, make use of the excellent characteristics of digital technology, and develop more financial education tools that are suitable for the digital age and demographic changes. (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)