Almost half of Irish adults do not consider themselves financially literate, with women less likely to directly invest in shares, hold private pensions and have personal savings, new research has found. Younger people are also less confident when it comes to financial matters, the survey found, with a quarter of 18–24 year-olds saying they are not financially literate. Despite lower confidence, this age group is also more likely to invest in higher-risk or emerging assets such as cryptocurrency. That highlights the need for more targeted financial literacy initiatives, Irish Funds, a representative group of the international investment funds and asset management industry, said. The research, which was commissioned by Irish Funds, questioned 1,000 consumers nationwide on their attitudes towards saving and investing. It found 44 per cent of adults said they did not feel financially literate, or were unsure if they were. While a third have a private pension, 12 per cent said they invest in shares or life assurance, a further 12 per cent opted for land or property investments, and 10 per cent took a chance on cryptocurrency. Some 16 per cent said they had no personal savings at all. There was a gender split, with only 49 per cent of women describing themselves as financially literate compared with 63 per cent of men, while men were also more likely to have a private pension, and invest directly in shares and exchange-traded funds.Rents and evictions soar as house price inflation slows Listen | 39:34Women, on the other hand, were more likely to have deposit accounts, at 70 per cent versus 63 per cent of men, but 20 per cent of women said they had no savings, compared with 12 per cent of men. That potentially leaves women at a financial disadvantage in the future, More than two thirds of Irish adults save their money in bank or credit union deposit account, while only 9 per cent had opted for funds. Most of those with a deposit account said they would leave their money there and not do anything with it. Irish savers have more than €170 billion on deposit in financial institutions. Earlier this year, Minister for Finance Simon Harris announced the Government would introduce a scheme to direct some of those billions into investment. “We have a significant population that is going to be getting older and that is going to have to provide in lots of different ways. They are probably not equipped from a financial literacy point of view in the way they should be.” Said Pat Lardner, chief executive of Irish Funds. “That tells us that this should be part of the national financial literacy strategy in schools. But also, this is not something we just do once, it had to be done systemically over the course of the next 15 or 20 years if we are really going to change the numbers at age level or gender level.”