In order for an agenda aiming to improve public understanding of finance to be realised in
practice, it needs to incorporate methods and tools that can be used by almost everyone.
Moreover, it needs to emphasize on applied knowledge and be relevant to solving everyday
problems of the individual. Then, it needs to also be appealing at a more collective level, i.e.
to take culture into account, as well as the particular interests of certain groups of people
who are more disadvantaged, compared to others who are considered more privileged.
Therefore, any endeavour regarding the public understanding of finance should primarily aim
to reconcile and bridge the distance that exists between those that are considered as experts
and the non-experts. As financial capability concerns the greater society, educational toolkits
aiming for the enhancement of financial literacy must, therefore, be succinct, direct and, most
importantly comprehensible to non-experts.
This latter aspect comprises the highest priority for this deliverable task of the PROFIT
project, in the process of the construction of its personal-finance educational toolkit, and,
more broadly, in the integration of the toolkit in the architecture of the PROFIT platform.
What is largely missing in the current scenes of financial-literacy policy and practice ‒ and is
a primary target of the PROFIT project ‒ is a toolkit, which is easily accessible, available for
free, benefiting and incentivizing via recommendation and social media features, enabling
comprehension by individuals without university education, and aiming for interactive and
collaborative learning. Placed in an environment of a broader financial awareness platform,
that financial-literacy toolkit can become a flexible and dynamic knowledge foundation, which
interacts financial awareness with financial literacy, in a manner which can be conducive to
the realization of greater financial capability.
The key objective of this deliverable task D3.2 is to introduce and describe the contents
of PROFIT’s integrated financial education toolkit. Workpackage 3 (D3.1) has also developed
generic and specific/thematic knowledge-based tests and self-assessment methods, which
assess the levels of financial literacy of the users and allow for the measurement of
improvement in knowledge. In parallel to D3.2, deliverable task D3.3 presents interactive
technologies for collaborative learning, in terms of personalised recommendations, nudges
and a gamified environment, inter alia, which all contribute to the generation of a concise,
integrated financial education toolkit. The creation of the toolkit is intended for the
generation of societal impact, targeting both institutional and personalised interventions for
the enhancement of users’ financial literacy.
In the emergence of a new fintech era, financial awareness and personal financial
planning acquire a whole range of related concepts and applications, which are likely to
require special treatment and coverage. The PROFIT project is part of the new fintech era, in
terms of all content, timing, technological integration, capability and potential. This
deliverable task D3.2 presents PROFIT’s integrated financial-education toolkit and discusses
all the relevant dimensions for the generation of its prototype. Jointly with deliverable tasks
D3.1 and D3.3, they formalize the outcome and content of a novel effort of updating,
innovating, and enabling – via interactive technologies and collaborative learning – a modern
online financial-literacy curriculum.