Millions of Brits ‘struggle with financial basics’

Millions of British adults would fail a personal finance exam asking questions of the same difficulty as GCSEs, according to a recent study carried out by Abbey.

The research saw more than 1,000 people answer “simple” questions about their banking services and around ten per cent performed so poorly that they would have failed if it were a real exam, Abbey explains.

Indeed, with credit consumers across the country struggling to become debt free, the financial services firm shows that around 4.7 million British adults would be likely to fail a GCSE in personal finance studies.

“Abbey certainly welcomes the government’s plans to introduce a much-needed personal finance element into the curriculum,” said Steve Shore, head of banking at Abbey.

“We would also urge anyone who doesn’t understand something on their bank statement to contact their branch or a financial adviser.”

Debt management problems forced close to 27,000 UK consumers to enter insolvency during the second quarter of this year, according to figures from the Insolvency Service.