The key to financial stability or growth lies in financial literacy. Financial literacy is an active process, in which communicating information is only the beginning: empowering customers to take action and improve their financial well-being is the ultimate goal. Financial literacy is critical for promoting access to finance by creating incentives and environments that promote desired financial behaviors such as saving, budgeting, or using credit wisely. For people living at the bottom of the pyramid, the ability to make good financial decisions is also important. The poor lack resources to cushion them from lost savings or investments or enable them to rebound from adversity. Having access to safe savings products or insurance can greatly affect their financial future. Fees and interest expenses related to financial products—formal or informal—are also likely to represent a higher share of income and thus have a significant impact on lives.
Low-income consumers must make complex financial decisions even more frequently than middle or high-income consumers, given their smaller operating margins and their limited and irregular incomes.
Financial literacy is also crucial to families of migrant workers who leave their countries and move to developed countries to make more money and have more opportunities for their families back home. When the money starts coming in, most of them are not equipped with the right knowledge to manage it. They usually just spend it on daily necessities and certain desires. They do not invest it or make the most of it.
As one of the leading remittance brands in the world, Xpress Money considers it a responsibility to educate people on how to best use their money. In countries like India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines we conduct pre departure programs and customer meets that focus on financial education as well as a briefing on the new environment that the migrants would find themselves in. We also run financial literacy programs for migrants working in developed countries in the GCC to help them make better use of their money. We have also partnered with Habitat for Humanity in Kenya to provide financial education and support to low income groups in the country.
We understand that financial literacy is not a one-time thing, but a continuous process. The learning needs to evolve with changing trends and economies. As a brand, we make sure that our customers are not only sending money home, but making the most of what they send.
