The 3rd International Forum for Financial Inclusion in September was the occasion of the publication of the National Financial Education Strategy (ENEF), a key plank of Mexico’s National Financial Inclusion Policy (PNIF).

The ENEF maintains that financial inclusion and financial inclusion are closely linked. In consequence, efforts in these two areas should be coordinated to work towards the sensible use of financial goods and services that will ultimately have a positive impact on people’s overall welfare.

The document explains the essentials for achieving an effective financial education strategy. The first step is to make a preliminary diagnosis of the current situation of financial education, considering the obstacles people face; based on this, the right policies, together with milestones and regular assessments, can be worked out.

The diagnosis outlined by the ENEF concludes that the main barrier is the financial education of children and young people, followed by the existence of a yawning gender gap when it comes to the understanding of complex financial ideas.

This public policy goes on to establish the institutional agreements needed to implement the education strategy as a basic driver for achieving effective financial education.

It sets out 6 lines of action that the various institutions must work on in a collaborative manner:

• To encourage the development of financial competences from an early age in obligatory schooling
• To develop financial education programs that cater for every population segment, as well as companies
• To foster a culture of using financial products that is also mindful of consumer rights
• To use new channels for spreading basic financial literacy concepts.
• To make full use of technology innovations in the financial sector
• To carry out assessments to improve financial education policies based on the outcomes obtained from impact measuring.

The Financial Education Board, the CEF, will work with the Monitoring, Development & Research Group, the GSDI, in supervising the appropriate rollout of the action plans set out in the ENEF. The Group will manage the assessment and analysis processes of the programs created to act on the strategy and will monitor the progress made towards the targets set.

Finally, the policy document defines the goals and indicators to assess the national strategy. At the end of the document there is a framework for assessment and measuring: each line of action has certain indicators and a timeline so that, once the program has come to an end, the CEF and the CONAIF measuring team can conduct a global assessment of the results of the strategy.