A LACK of understanding of financial issues is coming to the fore as many people lose their jobs or find they have tighter budgets, the National Adult Literacy Agency said yesterday.
A website, www.makingcents.ie has been launched by the agency and the EBS to make financial literacy resources available in one location. “The issues people are grappling with have changed and are much more concentrated on debt and money management,” Inez Bailey, director of the agency, said. Problems range from not understanding special offers, to discovering when made redundant that mortgage protection insurance was only purchased for a year, to investing a redundancy lump sum in a risky financial product without realising it, she explained.
People may find the moneylenders’ repayment schedules easier to understand than an annual percentage rate (APR), even if the APR costs less, she said.
People struggle with financial terms irrespective of education and social class and need extra help, Dara Deering of EBS said.
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