Indians have low financial literacy: Canara Bank CMD

BANGALORE: "Everyone wants to be rich, but financial literacy in the country is very low," said RK Dubey, chairman and MD of state-run Canara Bank. He said that due to this, the country required more banks to address the wealth aspirations of the people.
"There is enough room for new banks, both private and public, to come up. We need hundreds of new bank branches to service the needs of the people," said Dubey, while launching a book, You can be rich, by ET Wealth, a media property of the Times Group.
The book is a compilation of articles that have appeared in 195 issues of ET Wealth, the personal finance supplement of India's largest financial daily The Economic Times.
Priya Sunder, co-founder and director of Peak Alpha Advisory, who moderated a panel discussion post the book launch, said that the path to wealth creation was fraught with mistakes. "Managing wealth is more important than creating it," added Sunder.
Stressing the need for people to imbibe a savings mentality early in life, TV Mohandas Pai, co-founder and chairman of Aarin Capital, noted that unlike developed nations, India doesn't provide its citizens social security. "We have to depend on our own savings for support," he said.
Nitin Vyakaranam, founder and CEO of online personal finance advisory firm ArthaYantra, pointed out that one out of four Indians go bankrupt when an emergency strikes.