El Salvador experienced a 14% improvement in the Financial Education Indicator (IEF) compared to 2016. This indicator measures the state of financial education in the country, recently highlighted by the Central Reserve Bank (BCR).

According to Eugenia Pineda, an analyst at the BCR’s Department of Public Policies and Financial Innovation, this finding is part of the data revealed in the National Survey of Financial Capabilities (ENCF), carried out last year with the support of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. (AFI).

The official explained in an article that the comparison is made with 2016, since that was when the last ENCF was carried out. In that year, the IEF was at 10.3 points, while in 2022 it reached 11.75 points.

“The Financial Education Indicator increased in 2022. The success was largely due to coordination between government institutions to promote financial education activities and implement them in a larger part of the Salvadoran population,” she pointed out.

Pineda indicated that during the administration of President Nayib Bukele, financial education training, webinars, workshops, courses, and training fairs have been carried out nationwide, as well as savings and micro-enterprise simulators.

At the same time, he mentioned that since October 2022, the initiatives to promote training in finance have been framed in the National Financial Education Strategy (ENEF), which was launched by the government with the participation of banks, cooperatives, and savings and credit, among other actors in the system.

“The needs and challenges identified through the 2016 survey guided the National Council for Financial Inclusion and Education in the formulation of the strategy […] The progress achieved in this period can be attributed to the coordinated effort of all the actors involved in promoting the financial and social well-being of Salvadorans,” said the BCR analyst.