Insurance Daily | Gennaio 2024
The latest CENSIS research with an extremely evocative title – “Blind before omens” – photographs an Italy which, although firmly anchored to the financial wealth of its families – five thousand billion euros – needs a turning point.
Again, according to the survey, almost 8 million fewer people of active age are estimated in 2050, with inevitable impacts both on the ability to generate value by the industrial and tertiary sectors and on the stability of the welfare system: at this rate in 2050 the public health spending could grow by 35%.
The study centre notes that “in the face of gloomy omens, the public debate stagnates, and the calm of some economic indicators is not able to fill the sails to take off. Sleepwalking as a figure of collective reactions to omens is not only attributable to the ruling classes, but is a widespread phenomenon among the silent majority of Italians”.
In fact, protection and complementary pensions in Italy seem to be words banned from collective debate, even more so among young people.
37.7% of young Italians are not interested in building a pension fund and 23.1% declare they are not familiar with the topic. (source: Bank of Italy survey carried out on a sample of over 5,000 boys and girls aged between 18 and 34).
The theme is who can rouse Italian families and above all within them the new generations of young people under 30 from this torpor.
Financial consultancy today has the great opportunity to bridge the gap between interest in the subject and actual knowledge, making the world of investments less complicated and more accessible to increasingly larger segments of the population.
Some comforting data on the topic comes from the Edufin International Observatory created by FINER for Pictet Asset Management and now in its third edition.
Interest in financial matters has in fact grown by 10% since 2021, leading this year to see the category of those who declare themselves not interested disappear, while 85% of the sample is very or somewhat interested.
Interest, however, which remains largely linked to the size of the assets, reaching the maximum for the wealthiest customers.
At an international level, the topics of saving and investment are increasingly central, as they are considered essential for realizing one’s life plans in all the countries covered by the study. In fact, interest in financial topics is growing everywhere compared to 2022, with France and Germany in line with Italy, Spain lagging behind and the UK above average.
It is essential to identify who has the task of educating: institutions remain in first place in all countries, especially in Italy and Spain where 48% identify the State and regulators as main agents; the only exception is the United Kingdom, where 30% believe it is the responsibility of financial advisors.
But schools and universities also play a role of growing importance as places of financial education, highlighting the need to raise greater and better awareness among the younger generations. In Italy, the introduction of financial topics in civic education school programs was favourably welcomed by 49% of the sample.
Valuable financial knowledge and advice will allow us to open our eyes and wake up from a dangerous torpor.
Nicola Ronchetti