Student Financial Literacy And Inclusion Rate Below The National Average, OJK: Out Of 10 People, Only 4 Understand

Chief Executive of the Behavior Supervisory of Financial, Education and Protection Business Actors of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) Friderica Widyasari Dewi. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Chief Executive of the Behavior Supervisory of Financial, Education and Protection Business Actors of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) Friderica Widyasari Dewi stated that the level of financial literacy and inclusion of students is below the national average.

Based on the National Survey of Financial Literacy and Inclusion (SNLKI) conducted by OJK in 2022, the respective student financial literacy and inclusion index is 47.56 percent and 77.80 percent. The index is below the national financial literacy and inclusion index, which is 49.68 percent and 85.10 percent

"When asked 10 students, about 4-5 understands financial literacy, while the rest do not or do not understand financial literacy, and so on. If the inclusion, now is around 77, this means that out of 10 students or students are asked, 7 of them already have financial products," he said during the Financial Education Activity for High School/equivalent students at Indonesia Banking School, Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, January 23.

What becomes interesting is that the level of inclusion is higher than the level of financial literacy. This indicates that many use financial service products, but still do not understand what financial service products are used.

According to him, financial education for the younger generation is very important so that they are not entangled by scattered frauds.

For example, many young people have become victims because of Doni Salmanan's invitation, an influencer, for the fraudulent investment fraud case trading the Quotex platform. Likewise with fraudulent investment fraud in Auto Trade Gold (ATG) trading robots from an influencer named Wahyu Kenzo.

Friderica considers that there are a number of mentalitys that cause young people to be easily tempted to follow influencer invitations and similar people. Starting from Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), You Only Live Once (YOLO), to Fear of Other People's Opinions (FOPO).

He gave an example of the mentality of the FOPO that young people have that can cause them to easily apply for online loans, but it turns out to be illegal. One of the cases that was told was that a young man was eating with his girlfriend, then suddenly a friend of the woman came and was invited to eat.

"Look, his heart immediately wanted to be removed because the money in his pocket was only enough to eat two people, but because of prestige, finally his thumb moved under the table asking for an online loan which was only 10 minutes of liquid money, only IDR 1.5 million borrowed. (However), because it was an illegal loan, then he continued to make children until finally it ended up with how much? IDR 150 million. Because it continued to bloom, when it was stuck, suddenly another illegal loan offered, "he said.

By continuing to flower, finally the young man was disturbed by being chased by debt collectors and his parents were stressed, even though they wanted to graduate from college and look for work.

"So be careful, brothers and sisters, for that why are you here to learn about financial literacy which is very useful to avoid various dangers that can happen to you because of ignorance and also to prepare a better future, prepare a bright future with financial literacy," said Friderica.