Umed Hikmatov, Regional Operational Manager of FINCA Bank, in his interview told us how and why the manual on financial literacy for university students was developed.

In April 2015, the manual on financial literacy for university students came out. It was created in cooperation with the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. It’s one of the products of a large-scale project “Financial Literacy” of the CJSC FINCA Bank.

Umed, who was the champion of development of the manual on financial literacy?

It started in 2012, when the agreement on cooperation between FINCA and the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University was signed. The agreement was initiated by the Department of Finance and Credit of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. In 2012, FINCA used to hold open trainings on financial literacy for the population actively. The training attracted the interest of the population, including the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, so we started our cooperation.

Why was there a necessity to introduce a separate basic course “Financial literacy” for students?

First of all, due to the changes which have been taking place in Kyrgyzstan for the past 20 years. They include transition to the market relationship, development of banking services, as well as new challenges and threats to the population from the viewpoint of their financial safety. The combination of the factors identified a problem related to the low level of the financial literacy of the population.

The low level of the financial literacy becomes the main reason of the fact that the major part of the population faces certain difficulties in the course of cooperation with various financial institutions and falls within the risk group some swindlers and pawnbrokers can use to inflict big financial damage to the population. On the other hand, there was a desire to teach our young people to transact financial business and record their personal (family) finances in order to manage them efficiently.

All the tasks above required systematic approach and development of mechanisms of their solution. We supposed that one of such solutions is a course of the fundamentals of financial literacy for university students. It contains the basic subjects of financial literacy supported by practical examples and recommendations.

Why exactly students?

The matter is that currently over 150 thousand students study in the universities of the country. Annually dozen of thousands of young people go to universities and graduate. This is the new generation of Kyrgyz citizens who are going to take their diplomas and start working. Many of them plan to start a family. That’s why we think it’s very important for them to receive such training at that stage of life. The knowledge will be useful for them in their future life: it will help them to solve issues related to finance. So, if the subject “Financial literacy” becomes a compulsory one in all the universities of the country in the nearest future, on one hand, it will help many thousands of young people, on the other hand, it will make a certain contribution not only into the development of the financial sector, but into the development of Kyrgyz Republic as a whole.

Were the any attempts to introduce such a course in Kyrgyzstan? Did you have any basis or did you have to build the course from the very beginning?

As the data of the survey of Kyrgyz universities have shown, up to the moment there has been no individual subject of financial literacy or a manual on the subject.

As to the manual, we created it on the basis of the personal practical experience, as well as available sources, materials and publications on the subject of financial literacy being on open access. We also have studied the experience of individual countries of the former Soviet Union, where the state pays great attention to teaching financial literacy to the young people.

How much time did it take to develop the manual? What materials did you use? What experience? What experience helped you in the process of development?

If we speak about the time it took to develop the manual – it was almost three years. It was very important to specify the content which should include the most significant subjects in terms of the present realities. Moreover, we wanted the material to be not only informative, but also practical. We used various materials, publications and speeches of experts in that field. Also the book contains a detailed description of banking services, documents and separate cases taken out of real life which would help to work with financial institutions. In general, we had a total of approximately 200 sources. 12 years of experience of work in the financial sector and the teaching experience helped us, the authors, to make the manual understandable and intelligible for wider population.

What difficulties did you face in the course of work over the manual?

The main difficulties in the process of preparation of the manual were related to the scarce source of information on the subject. In spite of that, we had to process a lot of various information taken from different sources. Despite the fact that the issue of increasing the level of financial literacy of the population is urgent, in fact, there are no major works in this direction.

Is it planned to introduce the program into Kyrgyz universities? Can those who wish buy the book or its electronic version?

Yes, it is planned to introduce the subject “The fundamentals of financial literacy” into the academic activities of universities. All the universities which wish to use the manual on financial literacy can use it for teaching students be getting the technical assistance on behalf of FINCA Bank and by the Department of Finance and Credit of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. As for me, I call the administration of universities to introduce the course in order to increase the level of the financial literacy among the students.

The manual is not intended for sale. The electronic version of the manual will be available both on the website of the NBKR and on the website of the FINCA Bank: www.FINCA.kg