The degree of financial intermediation in Romania is of only 27%, compared to the average of 95% in the European Union, says Gabriela Folcuţ, executive director of the Romanian Association of Banks (ARB).
The low level of education, the high poverty rate and the absence of adequate models are among the top three challenges that persist at the level of Romanian society, says Folcuţ.
“I would like to highlight the top 3 challenges that persist at the level of Romanian society. Somehow we meet them every year …. In the first place I would mention the low level of education and culture, in second place the high poverty rate and, implicitly, a low level of individual economic well-being, and on the third place, very important in the Romanian society, the absence of mentors, of adequate models. I would like to tell you that now, 15 years after Romania joined the European Union, our state ranks last in the ranking of countries according to the degree of financial inclusion, with 67% compared to an average level of 95% in the EU, in terms of the degree of financial intermediation – 27% compared to the average level of 92%, level of education – of 22% and with a small exception almost at the bottom of the ranking from the perspective of individual economic well-being, somewhere at 72% of the European Union average,” said Gabriela Folcuţ, at the conference “The Future of Work & Education,” organized Oxygen Events, together with the ARB.
She said that globally, about one in three citizens is financially educated, while in Europe 52% of adults are financially educated.
Gabriela Folcuţ specified that the absence of mentors, which could lead to the adequate educational development of the person, can have as a consequence the increase of the degree of impoverishment. In Romania, one in three people is on the brink of poverty. The at-risk-of-poverty and social exclusion rate was of 35.8% in 2020, the highest in the EU27, where the average was of 22%.
