CFPB Issues 2020 Financial Literacy Report
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently issued its 2020 Financial Literacy Annual Report that highlights the Bureau’s activities and strategies to improve consumers’ financial literacy. Congress pushed the CFPB to oversee financial education programs to ensure that consumers gain timely information to help them make responsible financial decisions.
“This report outlines our approaches in three sections: Providing financial education to the public directly, sharing research on effective financial education with financial educators, and addressing needs for inclusion and financial security of specific populations,” the report reads.
The report highlighted the CFPB’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which included extra educational web content and resources for topics like credit reporting, debt collection, and mortgages. The Bureau also created two microsites and 34 blogs to educate consumers.
The “Start Small, Save Up” initiative, launched in 2019, also helped consumers save money “through direct to consumer tools and strategic engagement with a variety of external entities that focused on promoting solutions that make savings easier and more accessible,” according to the report.
The CFPB launched several community channels, including “Your Money, Your Goals,” which offers training materials that allow local service providers to help consumers develop financial skills. “Misadventures in Money Management (MiMM)” is a virtual educational tool that educates young servicemembers on early financial choices and mistakes to avoid. 90 percent of servicemembers that completed MiMM said they now know all their options should a financial need arise.
Lastly, the report emphasized the Bureau’s strategies to address the importance of inclusion and financial security for underserved consumers, servicemembers, older Americans, and students. The CFPB worked to enhance credit access, develop age-friendly banking practices, and educate on financial aid options.
“Through the work described in this report, the Bureau seeks to enhance the financial capability of all Americans to make decisions about money that support their own life goals, in order to help them in their efforts to build financial security and independence,” the report concludes.
Read the full report at https://www.consumerfinance.gov/documents/9445/cfpb_financial-literacy_annual-report_2020.pdf.
