Report: Chinese Residents' Financial Literacy Rises for Three Consecutive Years, AI's Effectiveness in Improving Decision-Making Quality Still Needs Enhancement

Why is the rate of setting long-term financial goals decreasing despite improvements in financial literacy?

On March 25, Shanghai Gaojin and Charles Schwab Wealth Management jointly released the fourth annual “China Resident Financial Literacy Report,” which shows that the overall financial literacy score of Chinese residents has increased for three consecutive years. However, long-term awareness remains a major weakness in Chinese residents’ financial literacy. Only 44% of respondents set long-term financial goals, a decrease of nearly 8 percentage points from last year. The score in the financial planning dimension has fallen to a three-year low.

The report also indicates that financial service institutions have actively integrated AI into front, middle, and back-office scenarios such as client outreach, risk control compliance, and operational support. However, applications in investor education are still in the early stages. At the same time, there is still significant room for improvement in AI’s accuracy in providing information and its effectiveness in helping investors improve decision-making quality: among residents who regretted following AI investment advice, 69% believed the information provided by AI was inaccurate, affecting their investment judgments; subjective feedback from institutions shows that 14% and 68% of investors experienced significant and slight improvements in knowledge after receiving AI-based financial education, respectively, but they also admitted that the actual effectiveness of AI financial education is currently difficult to evaluate in a quantifiable and comparable manner. (Reporter Sun Mingwei, The Paper)