Toss’s Financial Education Program Helps Young Adults with Cognitive Differences Build Healthier Financial Habits

• Financial literacy scores rose from an average of 44 to 79, surpassing the project’s target with an 80% improvement.
• Six-month customized education program showed measurable growth in spending habits, financial attitudes, and credit management skills

Toss’s financial education program for young adults with cognitive differences has led to significant improvements in participants’ financial literacy and financial habits.

The project was designed to help participants build financial habits in daily life and lay the groundwork for greater independence through financial education, fraud prevention training, small-group activities focused on saving, investing, and spending management, and monthly one-on-one consulting sessions.

Toss announced the results of the six-month program in partnership with social enterprise Free Whale. The program demonstrated significant improvements in participants’ financial literacy. According to the financial literacy survey, the average score rose from 44 points before the project began to 79 points at the end, surpassing the target of a 50% improvement and reaching an 80% increase. This indicates that participants effectively learned key topics such as basic financial concepts, credit, investing, and saving.

Positive changes were also seen in the behavior-based assessments. Across five areas—financial attitude, income management, use of savings, spending habits, and credit management—the participants’ average score rose from 3.5 in the first assessment to 4.2 out of 5 in the final assessment. In particular, financial attitude, spending habits, and credit management all scored 4.4, near-perfect results. A parent of one of the participants said, “We could see signs of growth in the way our children were recording their spending diaries on their own.”

Participants also shared firsthand accounts of the changes in their financial lives.  “At first, even the term ‘finance’ felt difficult and overwhelming, but after the classes and missions, I found myself handling banking tasks on my own,” said one participant.  “The biggest gain was changing my habit of overspending without thinking,” another participant said.

“Seeing participants’ financial lives change over the past six months made us realize the importance of continuous, repeated, customized education,” said a Toss representative. “Going forward, we will continue expanding our support so that financially marginalized groups, including people with borderline intellectual functioning, can lead safe and independent financial lives.”

Meanwhile, Toss signed an MOU with the Seoul Metropolitan Government in 2024 and began full-scale support for people with cognitive differences by donating KRW 100 million in proceeds from the publication of its magazine The Money Book.