Round Table Conference on the Financial Literacy of Students in Bulgaria - Current Issues and Challenges

Round Table Conference on the Financial Literacy of Students in Bulgaria - Current Problems and Challenges was held at the UNWE. The event was implemented within the frameworks of the Programme of the 9^th Annual Scientific Conference on the Inflation 2022 – Circumstances, Challenges, Impact which is jointly organized by the Monetary Research Center, the Institute of Economics and Policies and the Finance Department of UNWE and the Union of Economists in Bulgaria.

The President of the Union of Economists in Bulgaria Prof. Dr. Tatyana Hubenova-Delisivkova opened the event and emphasized: "The idea of organizing this round table conference came from the topic of the Conference on Inflation – Circumstances, Challenges, Impact in 2022. According to all official forecasts for the global economy at least until 2025 there will be the problem of actively counteracting monetary and fiscal policies of the institutions and in this sense our proposal to discuss the financial literacy and the ability to adapt to this changing environment of economic uncertainty and difficult predictability is dictated by the fact that the concept of financial literacy is evolving. From the initial idea of preparing better programmes for the financial inclusion of different age groups, especially young people in an economic environment, it is now expanding in the financing that takes place on a European and global scale, in the development of the platform economy".

According to Prof. Dr. Tatyana Hubenova-Delisivkova the financial literacy issues concern all age groups, the society as a whole, the social security in relation to the corporate security and cybersecurity. Complicating this concept underlines the importance of the contribution of institutions, financial intermediaries and civil society in improving the financial behaviour of all stakeholders.

The discussion was attended by representatives of key financial institutions, including Prof. Kaloyan Simeonov and Elitsa Ivanova from the Ministry of Finance, Anka Kostova from the Financial Supervision Commission and Yosif Yosifov from the Bulgarian National Bank.

Prof. Kaloyan Simeonov, Prof. Dr. Tatyana Hubenova-Delisivkova, Anka Kostova, Yosif Yosifov /from the left to the right/

In the course of discussions, it was emphasized that the financially literate people are more responsible and better prepared to plan their economic and financial future. If a society is dominated by the financially literate people, then the society itself would be more financially stable. But no matter how literate a society is, there will always be vulnerable groups for which a targeted policy of financial literacy should be implemented.

On the other hand, the continuous development of financial products and services and their digitization lead to the necessity of financially and digitally literate individuals to periodically upgrade their knowledge and skills.