A survey of New Zealand high school students has found most leave school with a poor understanding of basic financial concepts.

The Young Enterprise Trust survey of 443 students from a cross-section of 54 schools, reported in Auckland’s NZ Herald, found that only eight of the 40 multiple-choice financial questions were answered by more than half of the students, despite some having received financial literacy training.

The questions were based on common personal finance areas including income, budgeting, insurance, investment and savings.

Among the worst areas of understanding were investment, compound interest and risk.