3.5 billion adults worldwide lack basic financial knowledge
According to the global survey by S&P, Gallup and the World Bank, around 3.5 billion adults lack the minimum financial knowledge to make informed decisions. It isn't an abstract figure: it's the share of humanity managing its income, its debts and its future without the tools to do it well.
How we get to this number: the size of the global gap
The S&P Global Financial Literacy Survey (Klapper, Lusardi & Van Oudheusden, 2015) found that only 33% of adults worldwide can be considered financially literate.
Later surveys, such as the OECD/INFE 2023 international survey, still show low levels of financial knowledge in many countries. The gap exists on every continent, Europe included.
The real consequences of living without financial knowledge
Low financial literacy isn't an abstract academic gap. It turns into concrete decisions with concrete consequences: taking out loans without understanding their real cost, accepting mortgage terms without knowing the difference between a fixed and a variable rate, investing in products you don't understand, or not saving for emergencies because nobody explained why it matters.
Not knowing has a literal price. Lusardi and Tufano estimated that up to a third of the card charges and fees paid by people with low debt literacy are due to that lack of knowledge. And it's paid by those who can least afford it.
Why this figure will keep growing unless schools act
Every year, millions of young people start work, sign their first rental contract, open their first bank account or buy their first insurance without any formal financial education. They become new members of those 3.5 billion.
Financial products are getting more complex, crypto-assets are spreading, high-risk investments are sold as safe and expensive digital credit keeps growing. Together, they make the gap between what consumers understand and what the market offers them wider every year.
The only intervention that can break this cycle in a systematic, scalable way is education during the school years. No other channel has the reach, regularity and universality of the education system.
What schools can do today
There's no need to wait for financial education to become compulsory by law.
The key isn't adding more content to an already full curriculum, but using methods that build financial literacy into existing learning gradually, adapted to age and with measurable impact.
Finomik works with schools so their students don't become part of this statistic. Start with a pilot and measure the impact from the first term.
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