Continuing with our documentary...
If you haven’t seen my blog before, I am creating a documentary for my Innovation Academy class that has to be related in someway with Economy. With my partner Domenico we decided that our unit question would be: "How does the lack of financial literacy affect Peruvian consumers?". We have already been at Carsa (electrodomestic store), Jockey Plaza (Mall), FDR campus (school), Plaza Lima Sur (Mall) and on the street handing out surveys. Today we had an interview with Enrique Diaz, president of Mercados de Capitales, Inversiones y Finanzas (MC&F).
We arrived at 8:30am to Pardo y Aliaga 680 oficina 302 - San isidro where Enriquez office was located. I have to admit that it was very confusing entering the building because the buildings had double number, making it be like a labyrinth.
Enrique welcomed us nicely and we started the interview. On our first interview we had some camera problems so we didn’t let this happen again and brought two professional cameras with their tripods. Enrique started to tell us how people in Peru are starting to have more knowledge about credit, loans, quotas, etc but that there was still a lot to keep on working.
I asked Enrique if he could explain to us the problem in the Peruvian culture related to the interest rates of the quotas or credit cards; he replied something that I had never heard before but made sense. Enrique started like this “People in Peru do something called ‘Carrusel’ this means that they take out a loan or credit card and just buy, buy and keep on buying without realizing their interest rates nor the amount of money they are investing, which generally is more than what they earn. People get this huge loan so they decide to get another credit card or loan to pay their first credit card. The cycle continues and the debts get bigger”.
Enrique welcomed us nicely and we started the interview. On our first interview we had some camera problems so we didn’t let this happen again and brought two professional cameras with their tripods. Enrique started to tell us how people in Peru are starting to have more knowledge about credit, loans, quotas, etc but that there was still a lot to keep on working.
I asked Enrique if he could explain to us the problem in the Peruvian culture related to the interest rates of the quotas or credit cards; he replied something that I had never heard before but made sense. Enrique started like this “People in Peru do something called ‘Carrusel’ this means that they take out a loan or credit card and just buy, buy and keep on buying without realizing their interest rates nor the amount of money they are investing, which generally is more than what they earn. People get this huge loan so they decide to get another credit card or loan to pay their first credit card. The cycle continues and the debts get bigger”.
This sounded so strange but interesting at the same time. Then, we asked Enrique if he wanted to give us and Lima any advice and he proofed his knowledge once more by replying: “I recommend parents, couples, anyone to grab a paper, sit with his family or alone and write the amount of money that they have. Then write how you are spending your money and make a plan. This is especially important if you have a family, it doesn’t matter if you have small children, still do it. It will help them realize when they can ask to go to the movies, to go eat an ice-cream or when they need to wait or not ask for so many things due to the families economy”. All of this relates with how you relate to money or in other words Financial Literacy.