OECD/INFE toolkit to
measure financial literacy
and inclusion
Adele Atkinson, PhD
OECD
With the support of the
Russian/World Bank/OECD
Trust Fund
Outline and overview of toolkit
Outline
• Toolkit development
• Outcomes
• Future plans
Overview
• Set of good practice questions
• Supplementary question set
• Guidance on undertaking a
survey
2
Questionnaire development process
OECD/INFE definition: “A combination of
awareness, knowledge, skill, attitude and
behaviour necessary to make sound
financial decisions and ultimately achieve
individual financial wellbeing”
Survey of INFE
members:
identify
questions,
survey
approaches,
analysis
methods
2008/9
Develop,
discuss and
refine a set of
core questions
2010
Undertake
a largescale
exercise to
measure
financial
literacy
2010/11
Finalise the
questionnaire
and make
available for
widespread use
2011/12
3
Existing surveys were scrutinised to identify goodpractices and common themes & approaches
A range of national surveys on related topics were examined from around
the world- including surveys from Australia, Austria, Canada, Iceland,
Ireland, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore , the UK and
USA.
A questionnaire has been developed based on existing
approaches and good-practice questions
Behaviour
Knowledge
Attitudes
Financial
inclusion
Keeping
track of
money
Simple and
compound
interest
Propensity
to save vs
spend
Awareness
of products
Making
ends meet
Inflationtime value
of money
Choosing
and using
products
Short and
long term
planning
Risk and
return
Risk
diversification
Sociodemographic
information
Age
Gender
Time
preference
(present vs
future)
Holding
and using
products
Education
Work
Risk
preference
(explanatory
variable)
Product
choice
Income
5
Additional questions
A set of supplementary questions has also been developed to enable
countries to undertake further exploratory study to inform their financial
education initiatives or National Strategies.
Why aren’t these in the main
questionnaire?
• The core questionnaire is
purposely short and focused
• The core questionnaire uses
questions that can
differentiate between levels of
financial literacy
• Some questions are not
applicable across all sectors
of the population, or all
countries
What do they cover?
• A wide range of topics e.g.
• knowledge related to
particular products
• Certain behaviours, such as
taking advice or making
complaints (consumer
protection related issues)
• Use and impact of credit
• Understanding risk
A common method of data collection
Data to be collected by professional
survey organisations in each country
using a robust method to maximise
comparability
• Core questions to be used as a set, or placed
before other questions when combined
• Careful translation to retain the meaning of
questions
• Target achieved sample of 1000+ individuals aged
18+ (aiming for at least a 60% response rate)
• Weighted data to reflect gender/ age distribution
• Personal interviews so that respondent’s literacy
levels are irrelevant
• Additional guidance available in toolkit
7
International measurement exercise
• 14 countries drawn from 4 continents agreed to use the core
questionnaire developed by the OECD/INFE and submit the data
for analysis;
• They included developed and emerging economies including middle
(lower and upper), and high income economies
Armenia, Albania, BVI, Czech Republic, Estonia,
Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Malaysia, Norway,
Peru, Poland, South Africa, UK
Since the initial exercise a wide range of other countries have used the
questionnaire, and Estonia and South Africa have repeated the
measurement to track changes.
8
Outcomes
• The measurement toolkit meets a need for simple
instruments to collect comparable financial literacy data
• The survey instrument is highly flexible and applicable across a
wide range of countries
• The core questionnaire is also applicable in a wide range of
circumstances, across different socio-economic groups
• The questions are flexible enough to be used alone, or combined
with the supplementary questions or other surveys
• The data can be used to create replicable measures of
financial literacy that allow analysis within and across
countries
9
Future plans
Additional analysis and reporting
• The OECD/INFE will continue to use the first dataset to inform the work
of the network and related research.
Further data collection and sharing of toolkit
• Repeat the measure; both with original 14 countries and others: this is
already happening!
• Collect translated questionnaires to share with other interested countries
• Encourage all countries to incorporate the core questions in existing
measurement exercises, and if possible, share the data with the OECD
10
Thank you
Questions, comments, further information:
adele.atkinson@oecd.org
OECD/INFE www.financial-education.org
Russian Trust Fund www.finlitedu.org