Financial Education

Follow the Money - An Introduction to Financial Education in the United Kingdom

Autor: Howard Gannaway

November 2009

Extract of the Introduction

The lessons learned about the need for a financially capable population in the UK have emerged only fairly recently. This can come as something of a surprise to those outside the UK as it has for many years been seen as an important world centre – some would like to say, the world centre – of finance. The vigorous borrowing habits of the British population have been well known abroad for some time and the UK residential property market has seemed to many beyond our shores to be a rather strange national obsession about something that is, after all, meant to be for living in.

Englishman, “Guess what, property prices went up 15% last year!”
German: “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

In European circles, the UK has often been seen as rather wild and unruly centre of financial innovation and experiment. Quite how we acquired this reputation will be the subject of a PhD at some time, no doubt. However, if we look back over the last thirty years or so we can certainly see some of the main milestones on the road we have travelled. Many of these milestones seem to share the characteristic of being about the breaking down of old certainties and replacing them with new and exciting uncertain opportunities.