Key Performance Indicator:
Continue to invest resources to help people to become more informed about their financial well-being and help build the long-term capacity of community organisations to provide independent financial education.
Since 2001, our core Group CR programme has remained focused on financial capability and is based on the recognition that we need to play our part in enabling consumers to make the right decisions for their individual savings/financial needs. Such decisions range from debt management to savings. Informing and empowering consumers to make such decisions will, we believe, help to build better and more permanent relationships between consumers and providers.
Financial Services Authority - UK Regulator
Prudential’s Chairman, Sir David Clementi, sits on the FSA financial capability steering group that has designed the national financial capability strategy.
"Personal finance education in schools has made excellent progress over the last 12 months with unprecedented commitment from the UK government. Continuing support from Prudential has been crucial in laying the foundations for what has been achieved." Wendy van den Hende, Chief Executive, pfeg
pfeg (Personal Finance Education Group)
Since 2001, Prudential’s funding has enabled pfeg to ensure that quality and collaboration are central to its work. One particular success has been the Quality Mark accreditation system for financial capability teaching resources. This helps teachers feel confident that the resources they use to prepare students for the financial realities of adult life are of the highest standard.
Some 74 resources have been awarded the Quality Mark since its launch in 2001, with 15 assessed in 2007, with support from Prudential. All the Quality Mark resources are found on www.pfeg. org, with a synopsis of the resource, the topics it covers and how to obtain it.
Prudential’s ongoing support will enable pfeg to increase the number of Quality Marked resources, to widen the topics covered, to audit the existing information available to teachers, and undertake a gap analysis highlighting topics not currently covered.
Learning Money Matters, one of pfeg’s flagship programmes, is an initiative supported by the FSA. Over a five year period, it will improve the quality and reach of financial education in secondary schools in England. By 2011 trained pfeg consultants will reach 4,000 state, independent and specialist secondary schools in England, giving 1.8 million pupils financial confidence and skills.
Learning Money Matters, one of pfeg’s flagship programmes, is an initiative supported by the FSA. Over a five year period, it will improve the quality and reach of financial education in secondary schools in England. By 2011 trained pfeg consultants will reach 4,000 state, independent and specialist secondary schools in England, giving 1.8 million pupils financial confidence and skills.
From left to right:
Mark Lazarowicz MP and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Debt and Personal Finance; The Rt Hon Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families; Tina Christou, Group Head of Corporate Responsibility, Prudential plc and David Harker, Chief Executive, Citizens Advice.
Citizens Advice
Citizens Advice is one of the most high profile and trusted consumer-focused charities in the UK. Since 2002, Prudential has been its key partner in the Financial Skills for Life programme, following an initial pilot programme delivering financial capability training to hard to reach and low income groups through nine bureaux. Prudential has since supported personal financial education work by over 80 bureaux across England and Wales.
Prudential’s continuing support for Citizens Advice has significantly enhanced its ability to provide learning resources for use by bureaux. In the last year this has included material specifically geared for those working with: young adults who are not in employment, education or training; migrant workers, and the elderly.
The Financial Skills for Life grant scheme has allowed Citizens Advice to establish 14 new regional fora, covering all of England and Wales and attracting some 500 participants.
Prudential supports the Citizens Advice vision that by 2010/11 all of its bureaux should be able to offer a financial education service in their local communities. The Financial Skills for Life programme is central to that ambition, and to achieving a step change in financial understanding amongst those groups that need to make the most of their money
National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE)
This year Prudential has continued to support NIACE in its work of assisting the adult learning profession to develop and deliver high quality financial education. The NIACE Research Fellow in Financial Education, a post funded by Prudential, promoted this work at many conferences and seminars both in the UK and in Europe. Having a dedicated specialist within NIACE has helped financial education spread into the work of other NIACE teams, ranging from work with older learners to spreading the word through the regions.
Prudential’s support of NIACE since 2003 has helped develop and maintain the Money Matters to Me website, www.moneymatterstome.co.uk, which attracts around 50,000 hits each month. This year will also see the publication of a dedicated handbook for adult learning tutors helping them to use the website in structured learning sessions. Plans are also well advanced to include elements of the ‘Money Matters to Me’ website on Kickstart TV, an innovative interactive digital television channel for learning and skills.
Another boost to financial education for adults has come from the merger between NIACE and The Basic Skills Agency. In addition to its renowned national work on literacy and numeracy in England and Wales, the agency has also pioneered the development of learning materials for delivering literacy and numeracy teaching in the context of personal finance.
Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT)
Prudential has been supporting the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) since October 2004, to develop Adding up to a Lifetime (AUTAL), an interactive resource to support the teaching of personal financial capability to young people aged 13-16.
The resource originated as an idea within Prudential and has been developed by SSAT. The material has been designed by teachers, for teachers, to enhance financial capability through learning activities based on five key life stages, from life as a student through to active retirement. The wealth of materials provided in the resource serves to engage and motivate young people of all abilities. They support the aims of the UK Government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda and the New Secondary Curriculum, including the area of economic well-being and financial capability. With more than 25 hours worth of activities, the resource offers schools the flexibility of personalised learning across a wide range of subject areas and curriculum models.
AUTAL achieved the pfeg Quality Mark accreditation in 2006.
In Scotland, the resource has been adapted for the new Scottish curriculum and is being disseminated through Learning and Teaching Scotland, who recognise that developing financial capability is essential to addressing some of the problems of financial exclusion, and to allow Scotland to compete globally in the financial services sector.
In Northern Ireland, the resource is being disseminated to all secondary schools through the SSAT and the Council for the Curriculum Examinations and Assessments (CCEA).
Eleven AUTAL Schools Champions are now working to further raise awareness and use of the resource. AUTAL Champions are teachers currently using the resource with young people in their own schools. Their work involves showcasing the resource at local and national events, developing additional guidance to support teachers to use it within the curriculum and produce additional extension materials.
"As a lecturer, I believe the programme
not only raises awareness of the importance of financial planning, it also shares best practices with female workers on how to develop sound money management skills."
Carrie Dai
CITIC Prudential Life, China
Financial Literacy/ Capability Asia
The rapid growth of personal wealth in Asia coincides with a greater responsibility for individuals to provide for their own retirement and healthcare. In Asia, Prudential conducts ‘Investing in Your Future’ seminars to raise the level of financial capability among women, who often have responsibility for household finances despite their limited opportunities to learn the principles of sound money management. The seminars are delivered by Prudential’s female executives who teach the basics of financial planning and highlight the key issues involved when making financial decisions at different life stages – single; married; family planning; child’s education; retirement.
Prudential launched the ‘Investing in Your Future’ seminars in Beijing in 2004, in partnership with the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions, focusing on female employees at state-owned enterprises. Following its success in Beijing, Prudential extended the seminars to the Guangdong province in China, partnering with the Communist Youth League of China. The Guangdong programme focuses on young women workers in small and medium-sized enterprises.
In 2005, we extended the programme to Vietnam in partnership with the Government Labour Union (HCMC Confederation of Labour), which helps to connect Prudential with seminar participants at state-owned enterprises and other companies. In 2006, we further extended the seminars to India. This programme focuses on young women who work in hotels and call centres serving the local market. Prudential also piloted the ‘Investing in your Future’ seminars focusing on female factory workers in Malaysia in 2007.
Since the launch of ‘Investing in Your Future’, over 14,400 women have benefited from the seminars.
“The programme is excellent. It has been very informative and an eye-opener in terms of making me aware of the various aspects of financial planning and money management.”
Rekha Ramakrishnan
Officer, Sical Logistics, India
Insurance Education Programme
Since 2006, the Chinese government has actively promoted financial education. Prudential has collaborated with the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) and the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) to develop an insurance education programme targeting schools nationwide. In the first year, the pilot programme has been launched in 15 high schools across four provinces in China.
Financial Capability in the US
In the US, Jackson and Prudential have been supporting JA Worldwide® (Junior Achievement) as the title sponsor of the ‘Junior Achievement Presents the NEFE High School Financial Planning Programme’ since December 2007.
JA Worldwide® is the world’s largest organisation dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy, reaching 8.3 million young people annually in 119 countries. It has partnered with the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE), an independent, nonprofit foundation committed to educating Americans about personal finance.
The two organisations have been working together to expand the outreach of the ‘Junior Achievement Presents the NEFE High School Financial Planning Programme’, a practical and noncommercial course that is available at no cost to public and private high schools.
The programme introduces students to the importance of making wise financial choices. Students explore the role that money plays in achieving personal goals throughout life. They develop planning, goal setting and thoughtful decision-making skills that will help them protect themselves from the unexpected financial pitfalls that plague so many adults. Support from Jackson and Prudential will enable JA Worldwide® to roll out the programme across the US.