Survey: Three out of four Romanians are financially illiterate | BVB head: Few people are familiar with the Romanian capital market

According to 2015 S&P Global survey on financial literacy, almost 3 out of 4 Romanians are financially illiterate, making the country come last in the financial literacy in the EU, where only 22 percent of population are considered literate, says the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB).

In Europe, only four countries scored lower than Romania: Albania (14 percent), Armenia (18 percent), Kosovo (20 percent) and Macedonia (21 percent).

“The level of financial education in Romania is a barrier for investors who want to invest or diversify their savings administration. This is why our projects aim to increase the level of financial education and to make Romanians diversify their savings administration, from banks deposits to other forms of investments. If we look at the Romanian potential, we can observe that very few people (23 million) have deposits o value over EUR 24 billion, “ said Lucian Anghel, president of the BVB.

“There are few people that are familiar with the Romanian capital market. The mission of Bucharest Stock Exchange is to change this situation. Over 10 percent of the stock exchange’ shareholding is owned by individual investors. We would like to have more investors, more people that are financially literate and this is why BVB combines this mission with a broader mission to enhance the financial literacy in Romania, “ said Ludwik Sobolewski, general manager of the BVB.

The BVB’s involvement plans for investors consist in expanding the local retail investor base, which shows potential, according to BVB. BVB says that with the restored privatization process and certain positive developments such as lower, 5 percent tax on dividends, the retail base will improve, providing a push to open an account.

Read more about

Bento – 2B Intelligent Soft becomes ARIR’s associate member

read more

Since 2014, BVB has had several financial education programs: Invest Quest, Invest Club, Fluent in Finance, following the ArenaXT Demo accounts program in May 2016 that gives the individuals the opportunity to experiment trading. In September 2016 the BVB will launch Finlit Quiz, as well as the competition “Condus de randament” that aims to make Romanians trade with real money.

Georgiana Bendre