Financial Literacy and credit card usage: with special reference to Wewala West GN division, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Credit cards are a wide spreading modern payment instrument which is an important tool for producers and vendors in order to exist in the market and to uphold their strength in the present intense and competitive business world. Financial decision making is an integral part of daily life of people. Financial decision making and also the accuracy of those decisions depend on financial literacy. The main objective of this study is to identify whether there is a relationship between financial literacy and credit card usage. This study selected 300 households using simple random sampling technique from the 1442 households in the Wewala West GN division, in Colombo administrative district, Sri Lanka, which is the population of this study. Primary data were collected through a structured questionnaire. Validity analysis, frequency analysis, factor analysis, weighted average, Chi square test and independent sample t-test have been used for the analysis part of this study. The calculated financial literacy index is between 0 and 5.02. This study has found that credit card users have significantly high level of financial literacy rate. It has proven that, as shown in the previous literature in many countries, financial literacy rate is a considerable factor among other factors which affects the usage of credit cards.