Household financial services, financial literacy, and COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the relationship between the spread of the COVID-19 infection and the changes in financial services for households in Japan. Respondents who chose to increase demand for non-face-to-face financial services and cashless payments tended to have more financial assets and to be more financially literate. This result suggests that financial literacy is important in helping households embrace financial services to comply with the demands of social distancing under the spread of COVID-19.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-face-to-face financial services
• cashless payment
• COVID-19
• financial literacy

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D12
• E41
• G21

Disclosure statement

There are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research [Grant JP18K01704].