Technology-enhanced financial education and sustainability goals

This paper aims at providing evidence on how technological progress may allow to scale up financial education, in sight of boosting financial resilience. What makes this tough task a must – rather than an option – is the vital role that financial literacy and competence can play to eradicate financial exclusion: it fuels serious worries that encourage to minimize financial vulnerability and maximize financial well-being; in turn, financial inclusion can significantly contribute to the Sustainability Goals that have been adopted by the United Nations in 2015. These thoughts sound like an invitation to analyze the state-of-the-art and sort out unexploited opportunities. To this end, a review of most recent literature paves the way to a closer look at innovative technologies to be usefully applied to the education industry, in an attempt at furthering financial capabilities, both locally and on a global scale. Interdisciplinary issues to be addressed encompass web-based learning platforms, technology-enhanced pedagogical models and educational games; focusing on the audience, it must be accounted for the recent trend to-wards widening the scope of financial education beyond traditionally acknowledged borders, as shown by the increasing recourse to initiatives aimed at the younger and the elderly, in line with the lifelong learning approach. The significance, advancing features and value of this research conceptual paper can be identified with its results in terms of best practices that are worth disseminating, to the benefit not only of the targeted groups – including unbanked and underbanked households – but of society as a whole.