This paper examines global data on unbanked and underbanked consumers to highlight the role improved financial literacy and capability could play in motivating and enabling the safe and beneficial use of financial services. The paper uses Global Findex data, a demand-side survey on ownership and use of accounts at formal financial institutions, such as a bank or similar financial institution, or a mobile money service provider. The paper reviews the self-reported barriers to account ownership and use cited by unbanked adults and identifies the challenges faced by account owners who could not use an account without help. Together, these issues point to the importance of financial education to improve digital and financial literacy skills, in addition to product design that considers customer abilities, and strong consumer safeguards to ensure that customers benefit from financial access.

We examine the relationship between financial literacy and retirement planning in Russia, a country with a relatively old and rapidly ageing population, large regional disparities, and emerging financial markets. We find that only 36% of respondents in our sample understand interest compounding and only half can answer a simple question about inflation. In a country with widespread public pension provisions, we find that financial literacy is significantly and positively related to retirement planning involving private pension funds. Thus, along with encouraging the availability of private retirement plans, efforts to improve financial literacy can be pivotal to the expansion of the use of such funds.