Financial literacy amongst street vendors of Assam: a study in five districts of Assam

Financial literacy enables a businessman to take correct financial decisions and effectively manage money and debts. Financial literacy is the prerequisite to take correct and effective financial decision. Financial literacy enables street vendors in enhancing their earning potentials and reckons the available business opportunities. Combination of financial knowledge, behaviour and attitude is referred as the financial literacy. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) uses a series of questions to measure financial knowledge, financial behaviour, and financial attitudes and tries to evaluate financial literacy by aggregating the scores of those three areas. The present study aims to measure the financial literacy amongst street vendors across five district of Assam and explore the significant association between financial literacy and various demographic variables like age, gender and educational qualification. The primary data for the study have been collected from 400 respondents with the help of an interview schedule based on OECD toolkit. The study reveals that majority of respondents do not possess adequate financial literacy and there is significant association between financial literacy and demographic variables like age, gender and educational qualification.