“I now know how to choose the bank that’s right for me” Leah, 12.

Leah, plus 199 fellow students at City of London Academy Southwark looked to the future this week in back-to-back money masterclasses!

As part of MyBnk’s Community Partnership with the Financial Times, we are arming 440 young people with the skills and know how to manage money. First up to take the Money Twist were Year 8 pupils who played, wrote, drew, presented, crunched numbers, solved puzzles and invented a currency for the future (it’s all in the eyes!).

We tackled:

• Banking.
• Interest.
• Ethical finance.
• The flow of money between different institutions.

The idea is to get young people thinking about money from a personal point of view and identify factors to help them make that first and sometimes biggest financial decision: where should I bank?

We used real life case studies, colourful resources, games and videos drawn from their age group and popular culture, enabling students to explore and form their own opinions regarding their relationship with money.

Next up, hundreds of Sixth Formers will get a taste of the real money deal when they go to university in, Uni Dosh – a specialised workshop on independent living and student finance.

What did young people & teacher think?

MyBnk is proud to announce our membership of a new pan-industry financial education body, uniting 25 charities and dozens of key organisations.

We are one of the inaugural partners of Take Charge, a movement formed to unite charities and use our collective strengths, experiences and knowledge to empower, engage and enable children and young people to take charge of their money, life and opportunities.

Funded by Standard Life, Take Charge is in response to the most challenging economic circumstances facing young people in a generation.

In the movement’s first year (2013), MyBnk and others will work together to; 

• Create a State of the Nation map of existing provision of financial education and enterprise education across the UK.

• Map the skills, attitudes, knowledge and understanding that young people need in order to be financially capable, enterprising and also employable, by pooling partners’ on-the-ground expertise.

• Identify the broader skills that make young people employable, such as critical thinking, decision making and teamwork, through a survey of business and employer groups, education and the voluntary sector.

• Devise a five year strategy for Take Charge to set the direction of the movement in 2014 and beyond.

Things are kicking on.

Financial education is on the cusp of formally becoming a compulsory element of the National Curriculum and Personal Social Health and Economic education has retained its place in the Department for Education framework.

Take Charge is the next step in financial and enterprise education, helping us to co-ordinate and target support for young people, create better resources and enhance overall impact.

The group has dozens of affiliate organisations and an Advisory Panel, chaired by David Frost CBE, former Director-General of the British Chambers of Commerce (2003-2011)

Our friends at pfeg (Personal Finance Education Group) are acting as the secretariat for the Take Charge movement, offering co-ordination and leadership where necessary.

For a full list of partners, affiliate organisations and Advisory Panel members, including biographies, see www.takechargeuk.org/whos-involved.

More soon!

We believe that the education MyBnk provides is vital for all young people and have shared our expertise with organisations across the globe.

A recent example of our international work is with Save the Children’s Youth Save initiative in Columbia who contextualised some of our Money Twist material, with a focus on getting young people interested in saving, setting goals and utilising banking services.

It’s not very often we can say: six-day financial education jungle jamboree.

But, earlier this year 500 young people gathered at Tibaitatá Corpoica Park near Bogotá for an Inter-American Scout fest in partnership with Fondo Nacional de Ahorro (National Savings Fund) – using MyBnk materials.

Hands up!

This included a savings fair with stands on topics such as the benefits of opening a bank account and how debt can be necessary to improve one’s financial prospects, higher education for example.

We’re pleased to announce that MyBnk has become a Financial Times Community Partner.

What does that mean?

FT funding is helping us reach 440 students  with 46 hours of face-to-face financial education programmes in a specially designed project with the City of London Academy, Southwark.

Journalists and staff are also volunteering as enterprise mentors and helping co-deliver workshops.

With 11-14 year olds, we’ll build basic finance knowledge and help them engage with money in ways they’ve never done before. Money Twist sessions will tackle everything from the history of money and budgeting to needs and wants and ethical banking.

We’ll also be preparing 16-18 years olds for the financial pressures of independent university and collage life in specialised Uni Dosh workshops. In all-day sessions, Sixth Formers will master Student Finance, banking, costs and hear real life stories and create student action plans.

Lunch n learn

We also recently went down to FT HQ for a lunch and learn to spread the word.

Staff got stuck into Money Marathon board games, shocked themselves with their spending habits and built saving plans.

Programmes will be delivered in May and June, we’ll let you know what happens!

On our last day of Learn Money Week, we were very lucky to have renowned economist Professor Moorad Choudhry, IPO Treasurer at The Royal Bank of Scotland, help deliver a special session.

The top banker and author joined MyBnk Education Officer James and students from St Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls and the School of Hard Knocks to tackle banking, borrowing, saving, interest rates and mortgages…and play some games!

The 11 and 12 year olds didn’t miss the chance to quiz a real life banker. Fielding questions on breakups, bailouts and ethical finance, the MyBnk trustee rolled his sleeves up and dived straight into the nitty gritty, busting jargon and explaining cultural financial concepts like Islamic banking.

Collective “ahhhhhh”

The idea of lending money but not charging interest was a bit confusing for students. Especially after explaining how banks made their money! Pupils had heard of Shariah finance but were not sure a bank could turn a profit on such a basis.

Moorad explained that the Islamic financial model works on the basis of risk sharing. The customer and the bank share the risk of any investment on agreed terms, and divide any profits between them. Some ask for equity in a firm they lend money to.

“Just like the Dragons Den?” Exactly!

“Ahhhhhhh, I get it”.

Save-o-meter

Cutting back on spending and identifying bad financial habits are not the only way to get young people to save – helping them identify a goal and demonstrating how they can reach that goal is just as powerful as any shocking statistic.

The young lady on the left wants to buy a £300 annual subscription to a photography magazine. She’d like to buy it in six months. We divide the cost by 26 (average number of weeks) meaning she would have to squirrel away £11.53 a week or £1.64 a day. She know she spends around half what she needs a week on snacks, even though she doesn’t have to pay for lunch and her mum might match her savings. By mid-August she’ll have reached her goal and if she carried on saving for two years she’d have a whopping £1,200!

“I was impressed with their desire to learn, their energy and their keenness to engage with me, and their general knowledge of the economy” Moorad.

Hard knocks

Moorad and James then sped across London to the School of Hard Knocks, a youth group based in West Ham Rugby Club.

This is a charity that provides an eight week employment course for 17-23 year-olds who have been referred by the job center, generally if they are long-term unemployed or experiencing difficulty passing interviews. There were about 20 young people, some of whom had never had a job since leaving school.

Conversation quickly turned to tax and fairness. It helped participants understand the wider factors at work that effected their day-to-day life, connecting the macro to the micro.

In that session, Moorad had a “revelation”:

“When it came to the section on income tax, we presented some slides illustrating how income tax impacts the net take-home pay for someone on 15,000 per year, 35,000 per year and 150,000 per year. The first two cases pay a marginal rate of 25 percent, excluding payroll taxes, and the third case pays a marginal rate of 50 percent.

Did the group think this was fair? To a man, and woman, they said no. The most common refrain was “that’s not fair”.

The revelation was the impact on their aspiration. They could not see why anyone would want to work hard, and aim for a high salary, if they then simply handed over half of it to the state”.

What do you think?

Our penultimate day of Learn Money Week saw Young Global Leaders, MyBnkers and volunteers spread the word of financial literacy far and wide once again on three continents.

There was the climax of a week of financial literacy events in Nigeria. YGL Christian Wessels, Partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, helped reach 1,000 students in eight schools with money lessons and round tables of parents, pupils and politicians.

In Italy, the charity, Sbankiamo, supported by Banka Eticredito, delivered workshops to 200 teenagers at Liceo Classico Rimini, OSSFIN Rimini, Istituto Statale di Istruzione Secondaria Superiore Morciano and Scuola Media Marvelli.

Pupils tackled current accounts, interest rates, banking and ethics with presentations, games and problem solving using real-life case studies, simulations, role plays, quizzes and tests to make students able to explore and form their own opinions about their relationship with money.

In Atlanta, USA, Darrah Brustein of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers movement and author of the Finance Whiz Kids books, worked with 200 pupils.

4th and 5th grade pupils at Deerwood Academy had workshops centred on money and responsibility, the value of a dollar, short and long-term savings, and earning.

Students also received copies of the critically acclaimed series, which teaches money skills through stories.

In London, 200 Year 7 students at Holland Park School were treated to Money Twist sessions covering budgeting, youth employment, minimum wage, needs and wants and saving. We also delivered eight 1-2-1 Money Advice Service sessions to young people at Beyond Food.

In six years and tens of thousands of face-to-face hours teaching young people how to manage their money and kick start their entrepreneurial journey – we have had some fantastic feedback and insights that have helped make robust and fun resources, better.

From September 2014, it is very likely to be made compulsory for maintained secondary schools in England to teach students financial literacy skills.

Until then, a central focus for MyBnk is to make sure teachers have the support to implement new requirments and that lessons have the quality, accessibility and effectiveness that young people deserve.

Our programmes are rated poor to excellent (1 to 4) after every session by teachers. Our average teacher score for how valuable the course has been for their young people is 3.75. They rate the effectiveness of our trainers at 3.96.

With that in mind…

The following is from Ms Sultana Begum, Head of Business Studies at Crest Academy, Brent, London, where we have been implementing Money Twist and Uni Dosh programmes, and it knocked our socks off:

The service provided by them is one of the most organised and well-structured I have had the pleasure of working with, within 10 years of teaching and delivering enterprise activities in numerous schools.

• MyBnk come into school organised – no photocopying required by staff or teachers, as this is all done before they arrive. Print outs are of high quality, in colour.
• The MyBnk team are enthusiastic and skilled professionals with teaching background.  Their presenters are energetic and engage the students really well at all times, dealing with behaviour and any other issues which may arise.
• Material used is of a high quality, it’s pleasing to the eye, relevant, useful and up to date.
• Our teaching staff who supervised on the days, enjoyed the days very much, and as a bonus learnt some interesting facts about money matters!
• Students of all ages left excited and couldn’t wait for follow up sessions.
• Student completed work is left with the school – which can be displayed or sent home to parents.
• MyBnk presenters were on time, caused very little additional work for the school and helped clear up at the end of the day – no disruption at all.
• Interactive, engaging and excellent resources.

We have since invited MyBnk to work with our sixth form students and our girls school, Crest Girls Academy.  In addition, I have been so impressed with the work they deliver whilst in schools; I personally recommended them to a neighbour school, who have also invited them in to deliver the programmes they offer.

I would be happy to highly recommend MyBnk to any other school.  I am impressed by their work and already planning to invite them for 2013-2014 and beyond”.

Day 5 of Learn Money Week was IMMENSE as Young Global Leaders, MyBnkers and volunteers spread the word of financial literacy far and wide on three continents.

In Zambia, former MyBnk loanee turned international enterprise superstar, Sabirul Islam, helped bring lessons, inspirational speeches and money games to nearly 20,000 young people. Part of the Bank of Zambia’s Financial Literacy Week, Sabirul gave a TV interview on ZNBC & a radio interview promoting the positive effects of knowing how to manage your money, borrow responsibly and financial inclusion.

At the end of one speech in Kitwe, he had a standing ovation from government officials, policy makers & financial regulators. “I feel honoured and proud” he said.

He spent 10 minutes on his 1st budget & £9.50 was knocked off his weekly spend!

In two schools in Düsseldorf, Germany, 150 students aged 8-10 discussed spending, saving, investing and donating money – they even got a piggy bank!

The initiative was led by one of the co-founders of Learn Money Week and Child Youth Finance Board member Henrik Naujoks and was conducted by employees from management consultancy Bain & Company.

In Istanbul, YGL Ozlem Denizmen, Head of Strategy at Dogus Holding and Board Member of the Istanbul Stock Exchange, led eight school seminars for 350 young people.

Participants each received a certificate from the Financial Literacy Association. They discussed with children 9-14 years old topics like “What is money ?” and “How to manage money “.

Back in the UK, MyBnk helped young adults with survival money managment skills at crime prevention charity Nacro with our Money Works programme.

Hands up for financial education in Turkey!

We also helped 200 Year 7 students at Mossbourne Academy with Money Twist in four all-day sessions covering:

My Money: Payslips, tax, national insurance, government spending, minimum wage and careers.

My Choices: Needs vs. Wants, choices & lifestyle, budgeting, saving and goals.

Other events included an open day at our youth-led microfinance scheme in Walthamstow School for Girls and free 1-2-1 Money Advice sessions for young tenants at Peabody Housing Association.

Day 4 saw one of the biggest events of Learn Money Week, an AGM for 42 young leaders of our school microfinance schemes, MyBnk-in-Box.

In just a few academic years the young banker project has helped fellow pupils save over £10,000 and loaned money to start 131 enterprise projects!

There were challenges, games, moonwalking and lots of chicken wraps as Education Officers, MyBnkers, eight school mentors, teachers and Heads of Business, Enterprise, and PSHE from Walthamstow School for Girls, Forest Gate Community School and Mount Carmel Secondary School for Girls gathered at HubWestminster.

What ‘append?

Young bankers received awards for innovations and budgeting awareness campaigns and exchanged best practice on how to get young people into good financial habits.

We also launched a new version of our online bank (more about that later) and had a live in house PA performance of the MyBnk Money Anthem by JFX Music!

As well as old/young bankers, there was new blood in the room from Westminster Academy as Principal Ms Smita Bora, and Vice Principal Dr Saima Rana rolled up their sleeves and joined in activities. Their school will be starting their first microfinance scheme with us in September! Assistant Headteachers from Mount Carmel and Forest Gate were also there.

Our bank, MyBnk

Each school gave a presentation on how their banks have grown, attracted customers and educated fellow students to manage their money and reach their savings goals.

Walthamstow told their peers about their BIG launch where pupils lodged £150 in a 45 minute lunch break and how they focused on Year 7 students who had just joined the secondary school, with an eye to customer retention.

Three MyBnkers tied their work into a Duke of Edinburgh Award for volunteering. They also told us about international links they had forged with Malwi and Rwandan schools.

“This is a stepping stone for those who want to get into finance or enterprise, a great project to have on your CV and fantastic for raising financial awareness”.

Mount Carmel wowed us with their biggest saver, Caroline, who banked over £300 and an enterprise project shared their first experience of borrowing money and making a profit.

Forest Gate gave us a PowerPoint presentation of their bank and a rundown of numeracy, leadership and personal skills they had developed. Their bank has a stats & marketing unit!

The Challenge – Making the bank better

As well as patting each other on the back, we wanted to hear young leader’s thoughts on making their banks better and encourage more young people to start saving. We did this with an audio-visual breakout team challenge!

Students were tasked by fictional banker ‘Mike’ from Alpenna Bank to improve the medium and long term impact of their banks and develop a media strategy.

Ideas centred on the customer, offering them reasons to save, rewards for regular deposits and differencing themselves from High Street banks.

Top proposals were:

• Texts and emails to remind young people and parents of when the bank is open and what saving incentives are on offer.

• Encourage parents to back their children’s savings by matching deposits and setting up a trust fund at schools.
• Save with the Stars: Celebrity endorsements getting celebs to open symbolic accounts.
• Themed opening days, pirates, zombies, flash mobs and Harlem Shakes to promote the brand.

“We will take new refreshed enthusiasm and creative ideas back to our school and we will be able to get more customers into saving!”

And the winners are…..

Awesomestow School receive their award for Outstanding Customer Service

Forest Gate pick up their Award for Best Innovation

Mount Carmel showing off their Award for Commitment to Saving

Financial education went global over the weekend of Learn Money Week with sessions in both Italy and the UK.

In Milan, staff from the ethical bank, Banca Popolare Etica did their bit to raise awareness of money lessons delivering Laboratorio di Educazione Finanziaria (LEF – literally meaning “Financial Literacy Workshop”).

Young people tackled an enterprise word-search and learnt how to manage a family budget. They even had their own mascot, Spino the hedghog!

A score of 14-15 year olds also tested their entrepreneurial skills and were challenged to create a real business plan for a social enterprise with “Mi metto in proprio!” (“I’ll set up my own business) workshops.

There was also a confrence side to the initiative with speakers from universities, associations, sustainable finance organizations and the municipality of Milan – discussing how to establish a broader network of financial education initiatives in Italy.

In the UK, MyBnk had a special Youth Advisory Panel gathering where a dozen young people gave us critical feedback on programme material.

Their notes help us refine what we deliver in the classroom and make quality resources even better.

And in a Learn Money Week bonus, here’s one of our educators in a funny hat.