Financial education is a process that must take place throughout the life of consumers, given the intensification of the process of financial and technological innovation materialized in the emergence of new financial products and ways of accessing them. The financial education programs must focus on capitalizing on and use of financial knowledge and skills by children, young people, and women. The education can create responsible financial behavior within consumers to efficiently manage resources throughout life, including periods of the current health crisis. COVID has demonstrated the importance of economic resilience and the ability of consumers to adapt to the turbulence specific to this period. The financial fragility faced by certain categories of consumers during this period demonstrates the need to implement financial education programs. There is a need to adopt radical changes that are taking place in the financial market under the impact of fintech.
TopIntroduction
In recent decades, the financial sector has been shaken by multiple scandals and crises that have shown weak oversight by public authorities with responsibilities in the field, poor valuation of complex products by rating agencies, the pursuit of profit by credit institutions that set unrealistic targets for employees or who do not have rigorous risk management systems. The effects of financial crises and scandals have been felt economically and socially by many categories of stakeholders such as individuals and legal clients, public institutions. Financial consumers - individuals were among the most affected categories because the relationship with credit institutions usually involves contracting real estate loans with a mortgage that generates the purchase of a home (Matei, 2013. Andrei et al., 2018, Starešinić et al., 2019). The impossibility of paying the instalments to the credit institution entails the execution of the mortgage and the loss of the house, which can generate multiple personal dramas, especially if the clients have a family and dependent children.
The results of the financial crises have led to a dramatic decline in consumer confidence and some reluctance on the part of credit institutions and other market operators. Therefore, financial institutions are currently in a complex process of rebuilding the image and regaining the confidence of consumers and investors in the banking market, the insurance market and the capital market. Efforts must be supported by both the encouraging attitude of financial supervisors and consumer behavior, given the role of the financial market in promoting sustainable development and achieving their objectives SDGs (Matei, 2013; Botis, 2017; Ene, 2017, Stoian, & Iorgulescu, 2019).
The financial market is in a full revolution generated by the digitalization of banking products and services. Fintech is a trend that generates new business models, processes or products but also challenges for companies, financial institutions, individual consumers and public authorities (Gabor& Brooks, 2017; Ionescu & Rădulescu, 2019; Marara et al., 2019). Public authorities need to meet the new challenges posed by fintech and create the regulatory, supervisory and control framework for new financial products and services such as payment instruments and services or alternative forms of financing (crowdfunding and individual lending). the person). At EU level, the FinTech Action Plan was launched, through which the European institutions created the necessary framework for the implementation of „support measures designed to contribute to the introduction of FinTech solutions, as well as proactive measures to encourage and stimulate new solutions and to address decidedly emerging risks and challenges„ (EU, 2018).
Thus, the management of financial institutions initiated a series of measures such as:
- •
promoting codes of ethics among employees,
- •
transparency in the relationship with customers who must be well informed about the commissions charged by banks,
- •
promoting cybersecurity culture,
- •
more rigorous management of the risks,
- •
promoting a culture of risk,
- •
adopting a healthy remuneration policy for specialized staff and management staff
- •
caution in launching new financial products, which should be done only after a rigorous assessment of their risks
- •
more rigorous evaluation of financial products in order to be rated by rating agencies,
- •
promoting the principles of CSR by carrying out specific programs on the four general directions established by the United Nations through the Global Compact Initiative, namely the environment, human rights, the fight against corruption,
- •
development of Financial Inclusion Programs that aim at the access of certain categories of people such as women or the rural population to modern financial services
- •
promoting the principles of financial education among different categories of stakeholders.