Beyond serving as a guide to making informed financial decisions as an individual, financial literacy by the lot could result into a strong human asset for a nation especially if the knowledge is taught at an early stage.
According to a FINRA 2015 study, Students exposed to rigorous financial education in high school saw their credit scores increase by an average of 20 points and their probability of delinquency reduced.
In view of this, the Global Money Week is celebrated annually to improve awareness on the importance of ensuring that young people are financially aware from an early age, and are gradually acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours necessary to make sound financial decisions and ultimately achieve financial well-being and financial resilience.
This year, as is the tradition, Firstbank, Nigeria’s leading financial services solution provider joined the rest of the world in promoting financial inclusion in the country as the universe celebrates 10th Global Money Week from 21 – 27 March 2022.
The campaign, now organised by the OECD International Network on Financial Education (OECD/INFE) and has grown over the years to be recognized as a global and international phenomenon and in over 170 countries and over 50 million children cumulatively over the years.
In celebrating the tenth anniversary of GMW this year, Firstbank visited schools in 21 local governments across different states in Nigeria led by the CEO Dr. Adesola Adeduntan as the team played the role training the future leaders in line with the theme of this year’s GMW2022, “Build your future, be smart about money”
While the subject matter captures the importance of thinking about the future when making financial decisions, the bank believes that it would prompts young people to be forward-looking.
A total of N2,508 lives were touched by the tier 1 bank; consisting of 1,317 females and 1,191 males, from schools including Baptist group of school (kogi), Government science and technical college Kwali (Abuja), Greenfield College Ikot-ekpene (Akwa-Ibom), International School, University of Lagos (Lagos), Tinuola Maximum Int College (Ekiti) among others.
Notably, Firstbank is a promoter of flexible solution to address issues such as sustainability or the digitalisation of financial services. As part of the bank’s commitment to invest in the future of youths in Africa, the tier one bank launched the ‘FutureFirst’ initiative in 2013 which is targeted at secondary school students within the age bracket of 12 to 17 to enable career counseling and financial literacy for the next generation of Nigerian leaders.
The programme helps to guide the students appropriately towards making the right career choices to prevent the wrong career move in future which could have long-term negative effects.
Alongside Junior Achievement Nigeria (JAN), a non-profit organization, the programme has impacted over 80,000 secondary schools in the Nigeria.
In addition to this, the bank’s ‘MeFrist’ account designed for teenagers to embrace the culture of financial responsibility from a young age, keeping them positively engaged and entertained, helps the bank to demonstate practical approach to sowing the seed of financial inclusion in the young ones.
