OREANDA-NEWS. October 21, 2011. AS "PrivatBank" has presented a free financial literacy training programme for pupils aged 6 to 17. As part of the programme, schoolchildren will have a possibility to attend training at the Business School, go on excursions, do an internship at the bank, and, with consent of their parents, to obtain a Junior Card to acquire personal financial planning skills, reported the press-centre of PrivatBank.

“Money is what a man will definitely use regardless of the occupation, age and other factors. Nevertheless pupils are not taught to deal with money within the school programme. For this reason, we decided to offer children a possibility to complete an overall and maximally practical training,” points out the Chairman of the Board of AS “PrivatBank”, Oleksandr Trubakov.

“The main goal of JuniorBank is to explain the meaning of money and the basic economic concepts to children in the form of games. For this purpose we use educational games, movies, cartoons, books, web communities, on-site training,” says the Director of JuniorBank, Tatjana Gareeva, adding that the programme participants will attend 18 training courses hosted by the bank’s top managers during the year and will have a possibility to communicate on the website specifically designed for the programme.

One of the main learning tools is a Junior Card. Pupils will be able to obtain it with consent of their parents in order to learn to manage their money in practice. Parents will have a possibility to set a daily, weekly or monthly card expenses limit.

As Olga Skvortsova, a psychologist, considers, “The age when parents need to start educating their children on finances is individual but usually it is not later than 2-3 years. One should begin with explaining the child where money comes from, why parents need to work. It is important to explain that money is a serious thing, a part of the adult world. For example, products in stores are not ours until we pay for them. First of all, one should give his child special purpose money to buy a specific product. In this case, it is important to help him during the purchase by explaining each step. It is worth to give your child a purse, where he will keep money trusted to him. He should know how much money is in his purse and treat it with respect. When a child learns to make purchases, parents can start giving him pocket money. Pocket money is a way to learn to respect finances, planning, therefore it is important for parents to avoid typical mistakes. For example, if a child loses money, parents often easily give him the amount lost. Such an approach gives children a wrong idea. The right way to act in such a situation is to feel sorry for the child and explain him that money will not come back. The second typical mistake is to give a child too much money without controlling his expenses. The both sides should understand that this money belongs to parents, not the child, therefore it may not be spent on whatever he wants, it is a means of education, not a prize or present. The parents’ task is to convey to their children the message that money is a serious thing. Remember, if you don’t engage in developing your child’s financial intelligence, the streets or advertising will do your job, which can lead to a wrong perception of the value and meaning of money”.

AboutJuniorBank
The JuniorBank programme was launched in 2009 in Ukraine. At present, JuniorBank operates in three countries – Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia, uniting more than 250,000 pupils, and from October 2011, the programme was also launched in the EU member states. As part of this project, PrivatBank not only provides free practical training possibilities in the field of finance for children and teenagers but also supports sport activities and healthy lifestyle of pupils.

About AS "PrivatBank"
AS "PrivatBank" is a member of the international banking group PrivatBank. Today, PrivatBank serves more than 22 million corporate and individual customers in 12 countries of the world – Russia, Georgia, Latvia, Ukraine, Italy, Portugal, China, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Germany, Spain, and Kazakhstan. In 2011, PrivatBank took the 369th position in The Banker’s Top 1000 World Banks ranking, moving up from the 416th position in 2010.