RBI begins Financial Literacy Week campaign in J&K, Ladakh

Jammu: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been conducting Financial Literacy Week (FLW) every year since 2016 to propagate financial education messages on a relevant theme. The FLW 2022 was focused on “Go Digital Go Secure”
The theme for this year’s Financial Literacy Week is “Good Financial Behaviour – Your Saviour”, which is extremely relevant in the current times for inculcating financial discipline while also giving impetus to the digitisation drive of Government of India and Reserve Bank of India.
The inaugural function for the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh was held Monday in Jammu in the presence of Kamal P Patnaik, Regional Director, RBI (J&K and Ladakh), Ajay Kumar Sood, Chief General Manager, NABARD; Ramesh Chand, Reserve Bank Integrated Ombudsman; Sandeep Mittal, General Manager, RBI and other Senior officials from RBI and commercial banks.
Speaking at the inaugural function of the FLW-2023 for both Jammu and Kashmir and as well as Ladakh, Patnaik exuded confidence that the initiative will go a long way in spreading awareness among public for active saving, planning and budgeting and will also make people aware about various digital initiatives of commercial banks and will help them fight the apprehensions they have for using digital modes.
Sandeep Mittal, General Manager, while welcoming the participants, urged all bankers to be associated with Reserve Bank of India’s mission of nation building through creation of a financially aware and digitally empowered India.
It is RBI’s endeavour to reach out to both prospective and existing customers and all stakeholders are requested to co-ordinate and make this financial literacy campaign a success.
With the success of UPI, implementation of the account aggregator (AA) framework and the mass adoption of digital banking services, India is witnessing an emergence of new business models. More and more banks are opening up for collaboration with new age service providers for facilitating customers to make better use of their data and avail a wider and richer set of services.
Innovations like ‘Framework for facilitating Small Value Digital Payments in Offline Mode’ and UPI123Pay which was aimed at enhancing digital financial inclusion by enabling over 40 crore feature phone users to access the benefits of UPI in a safe and secure manner will contribute significantly in furtherance of the agenda of financial inclusion in the country.
The two sub-themes of this year’s Financial Literacy Week are Active saving, planning and budgeting and Prudent use of digital financial services.
While saving, one must keep in mind three important things that are Safety, Liquidity and Return.
Planning and Budgeting is the art of balancing income and expenses to ensure that expenses are always less than income. The surplus generated, if any, can be invested for future needs.
Prudent use of digital financial services is extremely important during recent times when we are witnessing an increase in financial frauds (mostly online) due to rapid shifting towards digital payments.
Reserve Bank of India has developed content in the form of posters and audio-visuals on these messages. As part of the Financial Literacy Week activities, banks have been advised to disseminate information and create awareness among its customers and public on this year’s theme by displaying posters on their websites, ATMs, mobile applications and digital display boards deployed in their branches.
RBI shall be undertaking a centralized mass media campaign during the months of February and March this year to broadcast essential financial awareness messages on this theme.