By Garegin Gevorgyan, Director of the Financial Stability Directorate at the Central Bank of Armenia.
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During the 70-year Soviet rule, Armenians were used to their finances being administered by the state. There simply was no value in financial planning and decision-making skills. When Armenia won independence from the USSR in 1991, a large portion of the population was financially uneducated. To remedy this, the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) embarked on what’s been a near 15-year long journey to boost financial education. |
In 2014, Armenia launched its first National Strategy for Financial Education (NSFE) with a nationwide awareness campaign to help change deeply rooted misconceptions about the value for financial education. To complement this, the CBA set up a financial education portal, ABC Finance, to guide citizens on everything from how to make a transfer to managing a budget and securing a pension.
Financial education was introduced into primary and high school curricula, and extended to colleges and universities in 2023. Subjects like math and social science were adapted to include training in budget management, saving, and transacting. Passionate students and teachers got on board, driving what later became a thriving citizen activism movement in support of financial education.
The introduction of Consumer Rights Protection laws and a Financial System Mediator helped boost consumer confidence in the country’s financial system and further emphasized the value of financial education. Currently, only 10 percent of customer complaints are banking-related, compared to over 70 percent five years ago, suggesting that financial education in Armenia has brought about concrete change in the financial system.
Today, Armenians’ awareness of the benefits of financial education is at an all-time high. An AFI-support assessment project suggests the country’s NSFE (revised in 2019) will result in a 75% financial education rate in Armenia by 2034. This is a tremendous achievement, but it’s not enough…
At the CBA we believe that financial education has no finish line. It’s an ongoing effort that – in our rapidly digitizing world – needs constant attention and maintenance. Just like technology, our financial education initiatives need regular “software updates” to keep abreast of the latest innovations in FinTech and digital financial services. This is the only way to ensure that no one gets left behind.
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Read more about CBA’s work on financial inclusion:
Monitoring & Evaluation of Financial Education Programs in Schools
Financial Capability Barometer
The Financial Competency Matrix for Adults, A Policy Framework
Financial Competency Matrix for Children and Youth