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The purpose of the chapter is to analyze the results of the primary survey on consumer cash and cashless payments in Poland in 2018 in the context of previous (secondary) surveys carried out in Poland and other EU countries.

The primary survey was carried out between February 9 and March 1, 2018, using the Computer-Assisted Personal Interview method. The survey was conducted on a nationwide sample of Polish nationals aged 15 or more. A total of 1,100 interviews were conducted. To ensure the representativeness of the collected data, the edge weighting (the iterative technique-rim weighting) was applied in accordance with the structure of the Polish population, including the variables of gender, age, and education.

The obtained results may be used by the participants of the payment services market in Poland, including the card issuers, clearing agents, payment organizations, and banks in order to discover the reasons for a high level of cash payments and to seek solutions to increase the cashless turnover in order to achieve better results in the future. In addition, this study fills a gap in the research in the field of the cashless payments and contributes to the creation of a literature on the cashless payments as related to the cash payments, with special emphasis on the consumers’ financial knowledge and skills.

The purpose of this study is to examine how households opt for their loan’s duration when it comes to energy efficiency retrofits (EERs). The primary focus is on the time horizon that these types of EERs will provide benefits to the households.

This study examines the second wave of the largest EER support program in Greece in recent years. The authors exploit an idiosyncrasy of the support program which offered interest-free loans. The baseline sample of this study includes approximately 18,000 households awarded the support and opted for a loan. To provide robustness and complement the analysis, the authors also use data from 38,000 households that were awarded support from the first wave of the EER program.

This study finds that EER investments that are likely to deliver longer-term benefits, in the form of energy savings, are positively associated with longer duration. This finding implies that households view such EERs as long-term investments that will consistently provide benefits in the future, thereby tolerating a longer period of incurring the inconvenience of paying monthly installments.

This study posits that an EER can be perceived by the household as an investment that saves money in the long term because of more efficient energy use. To this end, the authors bring forward the duration of the benefits accrued to the household as a driving factor to the household’s decision over the length of the loan.

This study expands on prior literature that has focused on consumer and loans for durables (e.g. cars) by examining EERs. However, EERs are different, as they can save households money in future periods. In addition, house EERs are at the forefront of energy policies and the design of future support programs at the epicenter of several initiatives.

This paper aims to investigate how microfinance institutions’ clients in Indonesia conceptualize financial capability. Previous investigations on the concept were mostly in the lenses of those in the developed economies.

A qualitative method was used, in which focus group discussions (FGDs) and interviews were conducted with microfinance institutions’ clients and management in four provinces in Indonesia: DKI Jakarta, DI Yogyakarta, West Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi.

The results exhibit some similarities with those of previous studies that highlight the importance of financial management and financial planning for strategic purposes. However, financial literacies perceived as less important due to the lack of awareness of the concept and its benefits.

This research is only focused on certain groups of the population which implies its limited generalizability. One important implication is for policymakers and scholars to re-examine the value of financial literacy within the context of Indonesia. Although the interviews reveal skepticisms on the instrumental value of financial literacy, robust investigations are further needed.

This study is the first that uses the participatory method to define financial capability as understood by microfinance institutions’ clients in Indonesia.