Financial literacy report: 35% of Trinis duped by financial fraudsters

Black Immigrant Daily News

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The report on the Financial Literacy Survey revealed that 35 per cent of respondents fell victim to some form of financial fraud and 19 per cent took part in what turned out to be a pyramid scheme.

Financial Ombudsman Dominic Stoddard made the revelation during the launch of the report, held virtually on Wednesday.

Stoddard said moving forward the National Financial Literacy Programme would need to do a comprehensive overhaul of content resources to include modules on using digital financial products and services, and detecting and avoiding financial fraud.

“We want to ensure that the population is able to identify fraudulent practices and keep away from them,” Stoddard said.

Given that 39 per cent of the population was affected negatively by the pandemic, the Financial Literacy Programme also plans to ensure that there are strategies to cope with the negative effects of the pandemic.

The survey was conducted with a sample size of 1,090 adults, 151 students and 160 SMEs. As far as financial literacy, Stoddard said that overall, 69 per cent of Trinidadian respondents and 67 per cent of Tobagonians were financially literate.

The report also revealed that there has been no change in the amount of unbanked people in TT since 2007.

“In 2007, we came up with a 21 per cent of the population or one in five people were unbanked. This year when we came up with the survey we came up with 19 per cent. So we had given that the margin of error was plus or minus three per cent, we could safely say there was no change in the unbanked population,” he said.

Findings also revealed that the people with the lowest financial literacy were between the ages of 18 and 24 years, with a form three education and came from lower socio-economic groups. Those with the highest financial literacy were over the age of 35, were in the higher socio-economic grouping and had a tertiary level education.

The report added that 40 per cent of SMEs said they prepare financial statements annually, 32 per cent agreed that business objectives were reasonably on target and 37 per cent felt they were not.

The report also revealed that 70 per cent of 10-17 age groups spend money on snacks.

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