Financial Services Authority, June 6th, 2014: Member of Board of Commissioners of Financial Services Authority (OJK) in charges of Education and Consumer Protection represented Indonesia at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and DevelopmentInternational Network on Financial Education (OECD/INFE) Advisory Board Meeting and OECD/INFE Technical Meeting on May 20th21st, 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey.

OECD/INFE, which was founded four years ago, is a forum for government institutions of various countries having concern in financial education. The OECD/INFE Advisory Board was then initiated in order to give working guidance for OECD/INFE. So far, there have been 15 countries included in the OECD/INFE Advisory Board, 90 institutions from 68 countries are included in OECD/INFE full membership, and 144 institutions from 76 countries are included in OECD/INFE regular membership. OJK has now become a full member.

This year`s OECD/INFE Advisory Board Meeting was the first to be participated by OJK, which attended to substitute Deputy Governor of Bank Indonesia as previous Indonesian representative. In this occasion, key directions for the INFE Technical Committee of the 2015-2016 period was presented. They are divided into several sub-groups as follow:

1. National strategy for financial education.
2. Financial education for financial inclusion.
3. Financial education for long-term saving and investment.
4. Core competencies on financial literacy.
5. Measurement of financial literacy and inclusion.
6. Evaluation of the Efficiency of Financial Education Programs.
7. Empowering Women through Financial Awareness and Education.

Apart from that, the meeting also agreed on formulating core competencies in financial literacy for the youth (age 15-18 years old), and implementation of financial literacy survey, which is to be conducted together using OECD/INFE toolkit. This survey is planned to be implemented early 2015. In the framework of National Strategies for Financial Education in some countries, participants of the meeting considered the need to formulate policy handbook to implement national strategies for financial literacy, and to create a guideline for private sector for implementing financial literacy.

Guideline for private sector becomes highly important so as to make sure that education by the private sector has been coordinated, monitored and evaluated, as well as to prevent duplication of activities. Involvement of private sector, particularly practitioners of financial services business (PUJK), has been included in OJK Regulation No. 1/2013 on consumer protection in financial services sector, stating that practitioners of financial services business must organize financial education and report it to OJK.

The meeting also discussed about the need to improve financial empowerment (which encompasses protection program for financial consumers, financial inclusion, and financial literacy) for vulnerable groups, and empowerment for Indonesian migrant workers (TKI) and their families. With all existing limitations, the program to improve financial empowerment for vulnerable groups requires additional efforts and policy that is integrated with financial education administrator, financial access opening, and protection program for financial consumers. This includes empowerment program for Indonesian migrant workers and their families.

The World Bank research in 2010 showed that Indonesian migrant workers and their families have limitations in knowledge, financial access, and in planning and managing their finance. The last discussion of the meeting was on the need of financial education for long-term savings and investments (LTSI). Discussion on LTSI became OECD/INFE`s focus since the world is getting old whilst governments have limited capability to fulfill retirement-days necessities of their civilians. More OECD/INFE discussions can be accessed from http://www.oecd.org/finance/financial-education/.