Abstract
Financial literacy is extremely important, both from the perspective of the financial well-being of individuals and the stability of the financial market and the whole economy. The more financially literate a bank’s customers are, the more frequently and consciously they use financial products and services. Thus, banks are potentially significant stakeholders in the financial education process. Considering that social media have become the leading channel for communication and relationship building, especially regarding young clients, this channel should also be used by banks to increase financial literacy. The aim of this paper is to assess banks’ involvement in financial education activities through social media. We assume that banks use social media as a modern and attractive channel for improving financial education among social media users. The empirical analysis was conducted using several data sources, including non-financial statements and a unique self-collected dataset that describes the specifics of the most popular social media platforms (like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, GoldenLine, and LinkedIn) in the activities of commercial and cooperative banks in Poland between 2010 and 2019. Descriptive statistical methods and cluster analysis were used. The results show that educational activities provided by banks in Poland differ for each social media channel. Additionally, although financial education topics have become more popular among content published by banks, there is a huge disproportion between cooperative and commercial banks. Generally, banks that are more active on social media (mostly commercial banks) also pay more attention to the financial education context.
Highlights
Financial literacy is extremely important both from the perspective of the financial well-being of individuals and the stability of the functioning of the financial market and the whole economy
Our estimation results show that the most popular social media platforms are Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, with Facebook being the most popular
This finding is confirmed in the literature, as studies of corporate communication via social media stressed that companies mostly choose Facebook as a strategic social media channel (e.g., Bortree and Seltzer 2009; Saxton and Waters 2014), with a slight increase in Twitter (Tao and Wilson 2015)
Summary
Financial literacy is extremely important both from the perspective of the financial well-being of individuals and the stability of the functioning of the financial market and the whole economy. According to Al-Tamimi and Bin Kalli (2009), financial literacy is imperative for many groups (i.e., financial institutions, public and private organizations, and entrepreneurs) for better investment decisions. According to recent studies (OECD 2016; Klapper et al 2015), there is evidence that many, if not most, consumers lack financial literacy. These results are similar to those of Christelis et al (2010), who found that most respondents in Europe score low on financial literacy scales. The identified low level of financial literacy indicates the need for action by governments and institutions, as well as non-governmental organizations, including banks. It is worth underscoring that banks are in a unique position because they earn profits from higher levels of financial literacy, which results in greater use of financial products. Trunk et al (2017) examined the strategies and best practices in the field of education in the EU, and their research confirmed the important role of banking institutions as educators of banking services users
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