FINANCIAL LITERACY OF MICRO, SMALL, AND MEDIUM ENTREPRENEURS: EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL INDIA

The objective of this study is to investigate the levels of financial literacy among Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSMEs) entrepreneurs in central India by examining four key aspects such as financial knowledge, financial skills, financial attitudes, and financial behaviour. By utilising the OECD/INFE framework for data collection and analysis, the survey method was employed to collect the data from 459 MSMEs entrepreneurs in the selected districts of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh through bilingual structured questionnaires. The results show the financial literacy score among entrepreneurs is 74.38/100, where Financial Attitude (78.40) emerged as the highest scoring dimension, followed by Financial Behavior (75.16), Financial Skills (73.10), and Financial Knowledge (72.24). In contrast, entrepreneurs display a strong sense of operational capabilities by scoring (86.10) in payment behaviour and (82.40) in financial planning, while there are significant gaps in matters like understanding of financial markets (52.30) and insurance behaviour (63.30). This study gives fruitful insights for government, educational institutions, researchers, policymakers and financial institutions for a sophisticated and targeted interventional approach to develop financial, managerial and risk-handling skills among MSME entrepreneurs in central India. Keywords: Financial Literacy, MSME, Entrepreneurs, Central India, OECD Framework.