UK personal finance literacy worsens

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Despite personal finance issues taking centre stage over the past year, the financial literacy of British adults has declined compared to this time last year, according to Abbey Banking.

The research is based on a simple GCSE-level personal finance exam conducted among a group of adults in August 2007 and repeated a year on. It found this year, one in seven adults (7.1m) would fail to achieve the 40% pass mark needed to obtain a grade C; a rise of 1.2m since last year when one in ten would have failed. Reassuringly, 25% of adults matched last year’s tally of A*s but A grades were down this year by 2% to 28%. Steve Shore, director of Abbey Banking, says: "While most people are in the realms of a GCSE pass, the failure rate has increased by over one million. Quite worry...

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