At this point in time, there is a broad and unequivocal consensus about the benefits that financial education has for general population, since it helps in the financial decision-making process, which, in some cases, can be quite complex. Nevertheless, there are nowadays large groups of the population —especially in underdeveloped countries— that do not have access to basic financial products and services, and it may also be the case that even having access to these financial products and services, there are people who do not use them. This is a serious problem because people are not able to access to basic financial services to attend their needs, also, it undermines how the financial system operates, that is, attracting resources from savers to transfer them to investors, which has a crucial impact on the economy; hence the importance of this problem, which is called financial exclusion.
Financial inclusion can be defined as “the process of promoting affordable, timely and adequate access to a wide range of regulated financial products and services and broadening their use by all segments of society through the implementation of tailored existing approaches including financial awareness and education with a view to promote financial well-being as well as economic and social inclusion “[1].
On the other hand, digitization is increasingly present in our lives, and today it is possible to carry out almost any financial process electronically, without having to visit the branch of a financial institution. This, obviously, has enormous advantages, but it also poses disadvantages for those people who, for one reason or another, cannot or do not wish to carry out this type of transactions through telematics means.
[1] Atkinson, A. and Messy, F. (2013), “Promoting Financial Inclusion through Financial Education: OECD / INFE Evidence, Policies and Practice”, OECD Working Papers on Finance, Insurance and Private Pensions, No. 34, OECD Publishing, Paris.
