Industry is blamed for mis-selling but there's joint responsibility

But for Alison Pask, managing director for financial education and community outreach at the London Institute of Banking and Finance, much of this could have been avoided if consumers were better educated in the first place.

She said: "This industry is constantly blamed for mis-selling and constantly being treated like the guilty party, but there's a joint responsibility between the consumer and the industry, and that's what financial capability is all about.

"It's creating a future where people are able to seek out appropriate financial advice, understand it when they get it and act on it.

"I've seen so many situations where if consumers had a basic understanding of financial services, we would have found ourselves in a very different position."

Financial education really starts to get people thinking and to show them they can do more.Alison Pask

One example is the endowment mis-selling scandal, where she believes even a modicum of knowledge about financial services would have allowed consumers to at least challenge the projections that providers were making about the the products' performance.

Mrs Pask, a former director of marketing and communications at Tenet, said: "A consumer who understands how the economy performs would be able to ask questions around the rates that were being quoted.

"For example, I take out my mortgage and use an endowment product as a repayment vehicle, which will pay off my mortgage as well as pay out a lump sum. I can sit here and know there are a lot of external influences – an actuary can never get that right.

"[As an informed consumer] I understand that I am taking that risk. Risk, and understanding your risk appetite is quite an important consideration."

Similarly, an informed consumer can get better advice. She said: "A financial adviser will evaluate your risk profile based on information that you give them. Let's say you have aspirations for the future –that can only be based on the information you as a consumer are giving them."

A big part of Mrs Pask's role is to convince more schools to offer qualifications in financial capability – and persuade children to take them up.

It was realised by government back in 2003 that financial capability among the UK population was appalling, and something had to be done about it. The easiest target were schoolchildren, and finally in 2014 financial capability made it onto the national curriculum (after being an option for some time).

But this was not the end of the story, not least for the fact that for many schools, despite its new status, the subject is not necessarily compulsory. This is because the national curriculum only applies to local authority schools, which now are in the minority, and other teachers, despite their enthusiasm for the subject are not able to take it on.

Mrs Pask said: "[The absence of financial capability lessons] will be because of demands on curriculum time and teacher time. Teachers would see the importance of such lessons, but schools are being measured on core subjects such as maths, english and science. 

"It's narrowing the curriculum and the main focus for schools is on performance." 

In a previous incarnation, before her current role, Mrs Pask worked as a teacher at a school in Kent, teaching financial capability qualifications, such as the Diploma in Financial Studies. The school seemed to be an enlightened establishment, with a very active business faculty. 

The head of that department saw an opportunity for his students, being a 20-minute train ride from the City, that being educated in finance would turn them into hot employment prospects for the financial services sector. And he was proved right, according to Mrs Pask, with many pupils moving on to jobs in financial services.

So how does one engage a child with the concept of managing one's finances, to the extent that he or she might want to take a qualification in it?

She said this happens: "When you're showing young people you can take control of your future by having aspirations. 

"When I first started to teach a new group I would start from a position of: if you want to be anything, what would you like to be and how would you get there? Money comes into it. It's then understanding what you've got to do differently.

"I have first-hand experience of teaching children who are second-generation unemployed. Their family life is based on the state supporting it. They will still have a mobile phone and they're sitting in the classroom, and saying 'why should I bother?'

"Financial education really starts to get people thinking and to show them they can do more. They have either a future that's supported by the state, a job that gets them from A to B, or you work hard in school and go on to have a career rather than just a job."

Practical examples go a long way by offering situations that children can relate to, for example: "how high street retailers work, and when you think you're getting a bargain, but you're paying more and getting something you don't need."

For the consumers of tomorrow, with a bit of luck, they may know a bit more before taking out that extra credit card.

Melanie Tringham is deputy features editor of Financial Adviser and FTAdviser.com