Financial Literacy Levels of Young People in Cape Verde

Abstract

Financial Education, at the beginning of the 21st century, began to have importance at the international level, following a research carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). After the 2008 financial crisis, Financial Education highlighted global themes for the 21st Century, showing how much individual decisions about debt, consumption, savings and investments affect the economy as a whole, locally and globally. In Cape Verde, financial education is the responsibility of the Bank of Cape Verde (BCV), and it is up to it, within the scope of regulation and supervision of the financial system, to reinforce the level of financial literacy, namely through training, dissemination, and promoting public awareness of the benefits of financial planning. The National Financial Education Plan (NFEP) constitutes the national strategy for financial education in Cape Verde, the initiative of which is the Bank of Cape Verde. The objective of this scientific article is to analyse and present an overview of the literature review on the importance of financial literacy in the reality of Cape Verde and a brief analysis of the results of the questionnaire on the level of financial literacy of young people in Cape Verde (aged between 12 and 25 years old), applied to 299 young people, in Secondary Schools and in some Higher Education institutions on the island of São Vicente. The results indicate that the student responses, in general, present, on the one hand, some financial knowledge and, on the other hand, a bigger concern about the component savings and financial conscience.