ADULT EDUCATION
5’2021

Abstract. The importance of household financial literacy improvement in Ukraine is the focus of public attention. Awareness of the link between the financial literacy level, financial inclusion, and financial well-being has become the engine for policy-decision making to improve it, in particular, the design of the National Strategy for the Development of Financial Literacy by the National Bank of Ukraine until 2025 by the representatives of the National Bank of Ukraine. In this context, special attention should be focused on such a component of financial literacy as borrowing. Aggressive advertising by non-bank financial institutions about the ease of obtaining consumer loans creates the illusion of a rapid increase in financial well-being, which can ultimately result in falling into a debt trap. Despite the positive shifts in the legal framework for the protection of the financial services consumer rights, in particular, credit services, there are several problems in the non-banking segment of the financial sector that need to be addressed, in particular, the lack of integrity in credit services provision (non-disclosure of complete information about services and their total cost before the agreement finalization), etc. It was found that financial regulators are taking measures to increase the transparency of this consumer lending market. Still, a comprehensive solution to the problem is possible only with a combination of efforts at two levels: at the level of financial regulators and the household level. Undoubtedly, it would be essential to include the level of non-bank financial institutions; however, so far, financial companies cannot be considered socially-oriented lenders since the usurious interest rates fully cover losses from the occurrence of problem loans. The most vulnerable groups of the households in the context of financial literacy are: by age – young people, older adults, by income – people with a low-income level, by education – people with incomplete and complete secondary education. Financial education of such vulnerable groups of the population should have two directions: first, increasing the general level of financial literacy; second, the formation of knowledge of the rights of users of financial services, already enshrined at the legislative level.
Keywords: non-bank financial institutions, credit unions, financial companies, pawnshops, consumers of financial services, financial literacy, financial inclusion, protection of the rights of consumers of financial services.

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