An Assessment Tool to Identify the Financial Literacy Level of Financial Education Programs Participants’ Executed by Ecuadorian Financial Institutions

Abstract

Due to the lack of a tool assessing the effectiveness of Financial Education Programs (FEP) imparted by the financial institutions (FI) in Ecuador by mandate, this research proposes and validates a scale to evaluate the Financial Literacy (FL) level of 314 participants (15–50 years old) after attending an FEP. The final 18-item FL scale, compounded with Financial Attitude, Financial Knowledge, and Financial Behavior dimensions, is reliable and robust according to the Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The average score for FL is 76 out of 100 points. The youngest scored the lowest, and the FI employees the highest. This contribution fulfills a needed FL scale to accurately measure the efforts of FI spreading the FE. It serves as a stepping stone for further research reconfirming its validity and applying the proposed FI’s FL scale as a pre–post FL evaluation.