Even a small reduction in financial illiteracy, could boost a nation’s household income by billions each year, says Marianna Hunt

Go into a primary school today and ask how many of them trust major financial institutions like banks and you’ll generally find that less than half do so. Sometimes it’s as low as one-third of the class. At least, that’s what the financial education charity I volunteer with, City Pay it Forward, has consistently found.

This is terrifying on so many levels. As adults, who will they turn to if not the major financial institutions? What sorts of investments will they buy if they don’t trust mainstream ones? How will the City attract the next generation of talent?

There is one thing that could help in all these areas: better financial education. Time and time again, research has shown that people with higher financial literacy are more likely to trust banks, investment companies, insurers – the sector as a whole.

In my view, there are so many reasons why we should tackle the UK’s financial literacy crisis: social ones, moral ones and fairness ones. But, they say that if you want to convince a finance person of........

© City A.M.