The promotion of financial education for poor people in developing countries calls for work on several fronts; one of which is to develop a measure to evaluate the outcome of financial education in relation to broader development goals. This paper uses Microfinance Clients' Awareness Index (MCAI) to determine the level of financial awareness of microfinance clients. This index is a comprehensive measure that incorporates information on several aspects of financial awareness in one single number lying
between 1 and 2, where 1 denotes complete ignorance and 2 indicates complete financial awareness of the microfinance product. Also, the factors that were associated with some degree of significance to MCAI were attempted to be identified Among different socio-economic variables, age group and highest education found to be t associated with the MCAI scores.
Measurement and Determinants of Financial Awareness of Microfinance Clients
145 Views
79 Downloads
Published 2015-09-30
Pages 45-54
Abstract
Keywords
Microfinance
Financial Awareness
Financial Literacy
MFIs
References
- Cohen M. and Nelson C. (2011). ‘Financial Literacy: A Step for Clients towards Financial Inclusion’ Microfinance Opportunities, USA. Presented at Global Microcredit Summit Commissioned Workshop Paper November 14–17, 2011 – Valladolid, Spain.
- FAIR, (2009). Canadian Foundation for Advancement of Investor Rights (FAIR), Financial Literacy Matters, Sept. 2009. Extracted on 12th November, 2014 from http://www.caribooliteracy.com/financial-literacy
- Gray, Sebstad, Cohen & Stack, (2009) Can Financial Education Change Behavior? Lessons from Bolivia and Sri Lanka: Microfinance Opportunities, Washington DC.
- Hung et al. (2009). From the working paper WR-708 dated September 2009 and titled “Defining and Measuring Financial Literacy” by Angela A. Hung, Andrew M. Parker and Joanne K. Yoong. Extracted on 11th November, 2014 from http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/2009/RAND_WR708.pdf
- Indian School of Micro Finance for Women (ISMW), Ahmedabad, India. Available at http://www.nabard.org/departments/pdf/seminar/Indian%20School%20of%20Microfinance%20for%20Women.pdf
- OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2005) Improving financial literacy: Analysis of issues and policies. Paris: OECD Publications.
- OECD-JRC, (2008): See http://composite-indicators.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
- RBI Report, (2008): Reserve Bank of India Report on Financial Literacy and Credit Counselling Centres, URL: http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/publicationdraftreport.aspx?id=526
- .
- Task force on Financial Literacy – Canada, Canadians and Their Money: Building a brighter financial future, Available at http://www.financialliteracyincanada.com/pdf/canadians-and-their-money-1-report-eng.pdf
- Tiwari A., Khandelwal A. & Ramji M. (2008), “How Do Microfinance Clients Understand their loans?”, Centre for Micro Finance, CMF newsletter Eye on Microfinance, volume 8, URL: http://ifmr.ac.in/cmf/eomf8-Mullainathan.html
- Tustin, D.H. (2010), An impact assessment of a prototype financial literacy flagship programme in a rural South African setting, African Journal of Business Management Vol. 4(9), pp. 1894–1902, 4 August 2010. Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM
✓ Citation copied to clipboard