“This is going to give me some great skills to manage money. My parents don’t know how, they never had this kind of thing at school so I don’t want to miss out” MyBnker, Elsa, 14.
Hundreds of young people have started saving during a mammoth week of not one, not two, but THREE new MyBnk-in-a-Boxes!
Around £400 was lodged in a single lunch break by 11-13 year old students, many of whom were opening their very first bank account. Going live this week and getting plenty of attention in the press, were:
- St Martins-in-the-Field High School for Girls – who had BBC Radio 4 reporting & an MEP cutting the ribbon!
- Forest Gate Community School – who have their own uniform!
- Westminster Academy – who’s head teacher saved £20!
These three now join Walthamstow School for Girls and Mount Carmel School for Girls who all have over a dozen trained student and teacher mentors running saving and lending schemes. They offer their peers accounts and interest free loans of up to £40, decide who to invest in and run incentivised saving and business start-up drives. All this is backed up with workshops covering everything from student finance and pensions to ethical finance and social enterprise.
There was a very special guest at St Martins as Syed Kamall, MEP for London opened his account and spoke to the BBC about the importance of schemes like MyBnk-in-a-Box.
“We all have to learn the lessons of the financial crisis and we shouldn’t be spending money we haven’t got. This applies to all of us from the government, politicians, families and households. The best way to spread good financial education is not by top-down methods, but by community led projects like MyBnk” Syed Kamall, MEP.
In the last academic year young people regularly saved £3.64 a week at our banks, that is 56% of their pocket money – an adult would bank £220 a week on a £26,000 salary! 5,500 young people have had their first enterprise experience with us, starting over 320 ventures via interest-free loans and business support. On average they made a profit of 73% and half had a social enterprise element.
UK personal debt is currently £1.4 trillion, savings are at a record low and young people face an ever toughening job market. MyBnk teaches young people how to manage their money and become entrepreneurs, by doing it for real with financial education workshops and enterprise marketplace challenges.
“Having experts like MyBnk at St Martins has been a great success! It is amazing to see 13-year-olds be so enthusiastic about saving. These girls have volunteered their own time to run the bank and help fellow students get into good money habits” James Faul, Humanities Teacher at St Martins & MyBnk Mentor.
