“Finance’’ is a really tricky word. You’ll love it when your salary gets credited and hate it when your payments get debited. Yes! We know how you feel. Totally stressed, extremely exhausted, absolutely tired of being trapped in this vicious cycle of never ending payments and not having enough savings which requires you to keep on working more and more to fulfill your needs and wants.
But is it the end? NO! Instead, a new beginning when you realize the importance of having your financial house in order.
Why Financial Literacy?
It’s 2018 and things have changed a lot. We now live in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world. We are surrounded by plenty of choices and opportunities which often become the reason for some of our wrong decisions especially when it comes to finances.
Increased life expectancy, no social security, cultural and societal stress are some of the other reasons that often leave us worried. Also, those with lower financial literacy tend to buy more on credit, lack savings, invest in products they don’t understand and by the time they realise they don’t have enough money to pay for things.
In a recent survey done by PWC, 7 out of 10 employees said that their most common cause of stress are money related matters and 46% of those who are distracted by their finances said that they end up spending more than 3 hours thinking about the financial issues at work.
This Financial Literacy has to be spoken about now more than ever.
What is Financial Literacy?
In simple words, Financial Literacy means the ability to understand how you can make your hard earned money work for you and take well informed financial decisions be it while making an investment or assuming debt or incurring an expenditure. When people are financially literate, they understand the positives and negatives of each financial decision they take.
Shocking Statistics about India’s Financial Literacy
According to a survey conducted by Standard & Poor’s, over 76% Indian adults lack basic financial literacy as they struggle to understand key concepts of financial planning. Moreover, going by the gender gap, 73% of men and 80% of women in India are not financial literates. This is shocking but true!
Adding to this, in a country like India which is one of the Worlds fastest growing sixth largest economy, our population is a factor that could stand against us when it comes to lack of financial awareness. Remember personal financial planning is crucial to the economy as when we improve our financial habits, the economy gets more competitive and strong as a whole.
Our Initiatives Over The Decade
SLA Financial Solutions has been significantly operational and persistent since 2004 with an aim of not just making people plan their finances but empowering them to make well informed financial decisions.
With more than 4500+ clients across boundaries SLA has been extremely active when it comes to educating prospective/ existing investors on financial matters.
SLA has conducted more than 300+ workshops/ sessions/ events at various organizations and forums. Some of these include :-
- Workshops conducted at Banasthali Vidyapith – One of the worlds largest all women
university across the globe - Sessions at leading companies like Coca Cola, Wires & Fabriks, Jaipur Rugs, Allen Career Institute, Poddar Pigments, Extensible IT Solutions
- Hosted an event on International Women’s Day in Jaipur wherein the topic of discussion was “why women should take charge of their finances”
- Hosted another event called as ‘Why She Why He’ wherein we talked about how couples
should plan their finances together - Adding to this, demonetization was a phase where everything was digitized and people in
villages floundered when it came to using banking services. But SLA strived to make a
noteworthy difference by educating around 500-700 laborers; teaching them the basics of
banking and its benefits.
Be it handling finances for their clients or helping them sail through turbulent times, SLA has never left any stone unturned in order to educate people so that their clients make well informed financial decisions.
Two days back we celebrated International Literacy Day wherein we saw various people/organizations/ forums coming forward and doing their bit to spread literacy among the masses. Now that you know why even financial literacy is the need of the hour for the educated adults; we urge all the organizations, colleges, schools out there to take a step to spread financial literacy among their people.
To say the least, THINK BEYOND to vision a financially stable future for all.
