The Financial Supervisory Service announced ‘Different ratio of financial credit loans for each age group’. According to them, 31% of loans to people in their twenties were occurring at savings banks or loan companies. With information from last June, 16.2% consumers in their 20s and 30s borrowed from savings banks and 14.6% borrowed from companies. This is a substantially higher percent than other ages. An average banks’ interest is 3%, whereas average savings banks and loan companies’ interest hovered around 27%. This figure shows people in their twenties are exposed to high-interest loans.
 Kang Hyung-goo, a financial director of Korea Finance Consumer Federation, pointed out the reason why young people got high interest loans. He said, “Twenty-somethings don’t know how dangerous interest is. They don’t know some risks or dangers when they can’t pay the loan back.”
  Moreover, the results of Korea Financial Understanding Index., which is supported by the Supervisory Service, show the level of twenty-somethings financial understanding index is the lowest. The Financial Understanding Index indicates knowledge about core financial concepts, behavior in finance and personal values about finance. An average financial understanding score is 38.3 for people in their 20s to 60s, but the score for twenty-year-olds is only 33, and their financial understanding index is the lowest.
  The lack of young people’s financial concept is because financial and economic education are not taught in schools. Most teenagers have learned financing and economics once a year. A lot of CBNU students also replied that they didn’t learn financial education in their adolescence and they don’t have any financial knowledge. Lim Ji-sun(’15, Dept. of Political Science and International Relations) said, “I have never learned financial or economic education, and I don’t have any interest in it.” According to experts, it would be best for twenty-somethings not to take out loans. Kang Hyung-goo, a financial director said, “Twenty-somethings shouldn’t get loans at high interest from savings banks or loan companies. Even if the interest is low, it will become a debt. That’s why you get loans at low interest. In addition, if you are able to pay back the debt by yourself, twenty-somethings will experience loans without problems.”

By Choi Ji-su
js36@cbnu.ac.kr