OREANDA-NEWS. January 25, 2013. Financial Wisdom Day, Swedbank employees became guest teachers and gave a total of 23 lessons to 27 classes about money matters, reported the press-centre of Swedbank.

According to Katrin Taliharm, Managing Director of the Banking Association, financial education is one of its most important areas of activity. “Increasing the financial awareness of Estonians is one of the most important objectives of the Banking Association for the coming years, and the purpose of this new initiative – Financial Wisdom Day – is to give schoolchildren basic knowledge on how to manage their finances cleverly,” she explained.

Head of Swedbank’s Institute for Private Finances Anne Sagi gave a lesson to the Grade 9A at Liivalaia Upper Secondary School as part of Financial Wisdom Day. “The students were most interested in the kinds of costs it’s possible to cut down on and how to keep a budget in balance,” she said.

Swedbank employees also taught eight classes of ninth graders in Valga County. “Only half of all Estonians consider their financial knowledge satisfactory,” said Anni Lillepea, Head of Valga County branches. “We see that every day in our work at the bank. We’re increasing the financial wisdom of our clients by giving them advice at branches and being guest teachers in schools as part of the ‘Back to School’ project.”

Lillepea says that many of the young people wanted to know how to make their money grow. “Every family should have a financial buffer of about 3 to 6 months’ salary,” she explained. “And it should be preserved so that its value doesn’t decrease. The safest place for that is a bank deposit. If you have more money, say a reserve of 12 months’ salary, half of it should be kept safely in a deposit and the other half invested in funds. You shouldn’t join the stock market with your family’s everyday finances or initial savings,” she explained. Those who gave classes at the schools in Valga County were the Director of the South-Estonian Region Piia Laurson and Business Client Consultant Inga Tikk.

“The main emphasis of the lessons was on family budgets, and this gave us a great opportunity to involve the kids,” said Head of Estonian Equity for Swedbank Baltics Andres Suimets, who taught two lessons at Tallinn Secondary School no. 32. “Naturally we exceeded the budget with both classes, but we then tried an exercise on saving money. In preparing the budget it was nice to discuss what expenses are and how big they can get. Occasionally the kids’ perceptions were a bit off – expenses on cars, food and clothes for example – but at times the discussion was very mature.”

Swedbank began explaining financial matters to children at the end of last year when it joined the social initiative ‘Back to School’. The pilot project, which took place in October and November 2012, was aimed at elementary school pupils and involved 47 guest teachers who visited 61 schools and gave lessons to roughly 2,600 pupils.

In the coming months the bank’s employees will also be teaching classes to basic and secondary school students.

The ‘Back to School’ initiative is an offshoot of the ‘Youth to School’ programme established by Swedbank and the Good Deed Foundation, which in previous years has been supported by the bank both financially and in terms of shared knowledge.

Support for education and passing on financial know-how are focal themes of Swedbank’s social involvement in Estonia. In contributing to the ‘Back to School’ initiative the bank is seeking to promote educational life and raise the level of financial literacy among young people in the country.