The UK is in the midst of a financial knowledge gap, with just 38% of UK adults understanding the term ‘inflation’ according to a study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The recent study places the UK behind Estonia, Latvia and 12 other nations in terms of financial literacy. With only 69% carefully considering their purchases, it’s clear that the UK’s lacking financial knowledge is impacting our awareness and understanding of personal finance.

Striving to bridge this knowledge gap is True Potential Investor, a personal pension provider and investment specialist that has partnered with the Open University. Part of the Open University Business School, The True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance (PUFin) aims to develop financial knowledge on a general and personal level.

True Potential Investor invested £1.4 million into the True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance for research and to establish a series of free personal finance courses, including Managing My Money, Managing My Investments and Managing My Financial Journey. Together, the courses improve the core areas of personal finance, investments and financial service providers.

The newest course to be made available is Finance Fundamentals: Financial Planning and Budgeting, which highlights financial attitudes in our current economy and how to change bad habits. It has been designed to help households make better decisions with their money.

The modules can be accessed online through the FutureLearn educational platform and the Open University’s OpenLearn platform, meaning the courses are flexible enough to fit into even the busiest lifestyles.

To date, the courses have attracted some 200,000 sign-ups, underlining just how in-demand this type of financial knowledge is in the UK and the sheer scale of the knowledge gap.

Visit the True Potential Investor website to learn more about the free finance courses and to sign up.

Editor’s Notes

True Potential Investor is the direct-to-consumer investment platform division of True Potential LLP, a UK financial services group.

The Open University is a distance learning and research university in the UK.