CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Financial literacy remains an interesting issue in both developed and developing economies, and has elicited much interest in the recent past with the rapid change in the finance landscape. Atkinson and Messy (2005) defined financial literacy as the combination of consumers’/investors’ understanding of financial products and concepts and their ability and confidence to appreciate financial risks and opportunities, to make informed choices, to know where to go for help, and to take other effective actions to improve their financial well-being.
Financial literacy helps in empowering and educating investors so that they are knowledgeable about finance in a way that is relevant to their business and enables them to use this knowledge to evaluate products and make informed decisions. It is widely expected that greater financial knowledge would help overcome recent difficulties in advanced credit markets. Financial literacy prepares investors for tough financial times, through strategies that mitigate risk such as accumulating savings, diversifying assets, and purchasing insurance.Financial literacy facilitates the decision making processes such as payment of bills on time, proper debt management which improves the credit worthiness of potential borrowers to support livelihoods, economic growth, sound financial systems, and poverty reduction. It also provides greater control of one’s financial future, more effective use of financial products and services, and reduced vulnerability to overzealous retailers or fraudulent schemes.
Facing an educated lot, financial regulators are forced to improve the efficiency and quality of financial services. This is because financially literate investors create competitive pressures on financial institutions to offer more appropriately priced and transparent services, by comparing options, asking the right questions, and negotiating more effectively. Investors on their part are able to evaluate and compare financial products, such as bank accounts, saving products, credit and loan options, payment instruments, investments and insurance coverage, so as to make optimal decisions (Miller, Godfrey, Levesque and Stark, 2009).Lack of business and management skills can magnify financial barriers for SMEs. Low levels of financial literacy can prevent SMEs from adequately assessing and understanding different financing options, and from navigating complex loan application procedures.
Similarly, the fact that SMEs’ accounting and financial statements are often not transparent makes them risky borrowers and thus less attractive to lenders. Capacity building of SMEs in terms of preparing financial statements and business plans, as well as improving their financial literacy and management training, is shown to have positive impact on SME development. Furthermore, strengthening the horizontal linkages with other SMEs and vertical linkages with larger firms would improve SMEs’ market access. (Hogarth and Hilgert, 2002).