European Activities
• The EBF report on Financial Literacy (April 2009)
The report covers a broad spectrum of initiatives taken by EBF members and their member banks. Projects range from websites teaching basic skills in financing - targeted at an audience from 5-7 years old to university-level education, and projects with a more hands-on approach for the aged population. More >>
• The International gateway for financial education (IGFE) is established by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as part of its overall comprehensive project on financial education.
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• The European Database for Financial Education (19 january 2009)
The European Commission has published a European Database for Financial Education (EDFE) on the "Europa" website. It has been designed to reference numerous financial education programmes offered by public or private institutions in the European Union. The EDFE includes standardised information about educational schemes and research projects. It is open to all providers and potential users. By improving access to information about the existing initiatives the Commission wants to contribute to improving financial capability of consumers and users of financial services. Details>>
Italian activities
PattiChiari developed a series of programmes according to a life-cycle approach that cover diverse segments of the population (children, young adults, adults and senior citizens) choosing - on a case-by-case basis - the best instruments, contents and partner projects. Each programme is characterized by the objective measurements of the results.
Schools projects
PattiChiari promotes the importance of informing and training ”. individuals on economic and financial issues as soon as possible, starting from school.
• The didactic programme “Io e l’economia”, sponsored since 2004 in collaboration with a non-profit foundation, Junior Achievement Italia, to teach junior high students about the world of finance. The programme offers a tutor in the classroom, who is from the banking world and assisted by a teacher to conduct the lessons.
In the four years it has been active, it has involved 60,000 students from approximately 900 junior high schools. The results from this experience, collected from an evaluation, were positive: 70% of the contacted teachers were in favour of the initiative, stating that the programme triggered new outlooks and curiosity about the world of finance.
• “PattiChiari con l’economia”, developed together with the Ministry of Education is, instead, targeted to high school students. Its aim is to offer them appropriate preparation to actively participate in the social, professional and the financial life surrounding them.
Since 2007, 150,000 youngsters were involved.
• In march 2009 PattiChiari, in collaboraztion with Explora - the children Museum of Rome, launched Economiamo, an interactive exhibition for children dedicated to money sensible use. Economiamo gives teachers and parents an interesting occasion to educate children on Economics through an innovative educational approach. It is composed of interactive game stands allowing children to deal with a real budget in Euros. Each child is provided with a bar code bracelet, that registers earnings and expenses. Children can work (as scientist, postman or mechanic) to earn their wages, spend in basic necessities or amusements, pay taxes and donate in favour of community. Balancing earnings and expenses is their main objective.
Initiatives on the territory
The Consortium organizes several information campaigns all over the country, such as “PattiChiari in città”, a tour that for four years has been bringing financial education directly in the Italian cities.
Consortium experts, in an informal setting such as city streets, provide Italian citizens with clear information, as well as free and easy-to-use tools.
The presence of “PattiChiari in città” wants to encourage citizens in investing a bit of their time on financial culture; PattiChiari’s goal is spreading knowledge of financial products, and helping to make informed choices.
PattiChiari’s vans and teams travelled over 50,000 Km, reaching 260 small and medium-sized cities, and directly contacting 1.000.000 citizens.
Web initiatives
PattiChiari promotes ongoing and widespread economic and financial education using new electronic media.
The www.pattichiari.it website address directly to users, through its “education area”, where citizens, students, and SMEs can have access to three different learning paths, customized according to their specific needs.
Overall, the two sections received 22,5 million hits.
On the PattiChiari website, several interactive tools have been implemented with the aim of collecting data useful to understand social and cultural phenomena linked to bank-client relations, to collect, information about its own initiatives and to test consumers’ economic and financial knowledge.
National information campaign
The Dialogo Campaign, which took place in November 2007, was the first large scale information campaign on financial education in Italy and its aim was to create awareness on financial education. More than 6 million information guides were distributed free of charge (at 26,600 bank counters) with the aim of offering savers a useful tool and to make them aware of the importance of looking after their own money so they could feel more confident about their choices. In the final stage, a significant amount of qualitative research measured the effectiveness of each instrument.: 25% of those bankarized (and 34% of investors), after a request was made, declared that they understood the importance of being informed prior to making financial decisions.
External alliances
External parties, who either represent and/or influence special segments of the population, both retail and SME, are involved in PattiChiari’s activities in order to make Consortium initiatives more effective in reaching set targets, more reliable in carrying information and faster in spreading knowledge.
Partnerships both with consumers associations and with industry organizations for SMEs and farmers have been developed.