Around 74% of Portuguese adults have trouble calculating interest rates and understanding other financial matters, making Portugal the second least “financially literate” country in the European Union.
The findings came from a survey conducted by American financial services company Standard & Poor’s.
The results were announced on Wednesday, after interviews were conducted with over 150,000 adults in more than 140 countries. People were tested on their knowledge of “four basic financial concepts: numeracy, interest compounding, inflation and risk diversification”.
In Portugal, only 26% were considered financially literate. The only country that did worse in the EU was Romania (22%).
The countries with the highest results were Norway, Denmark, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, where at least 65% of adults were named financially literate.
In international terms, the survey found that two-thirds of adults worldwide are not financially literate and there is a “wide gap between men and women’s literacy, including in highly-developed countries”.
In fact, there is a five-point gender gap, with 35% of men being financially literate compared with 30% of women.
To be named financially literate, the interviewee had to get at least three answers right out of the five questions asked. The survey is still available online (https://www.mhfi.com/corporate-responsibility/global-financial-literacy-survey).
