OREANDA-NEWS. September 11, 2014. In order to promote the spread of financial knowledge and the education of financial consumers, and enhance the financial literacy and risk awareness of consumers, the PBC has formally launched the Financial Literacy Education Month in 2014.

The theme of this year’s Financial Literacy Education Month is spreading financial knowledge, bringing benefits to people’s daily life, and building a harmonious financial sector.

This year’s financial literacy education month will focus on providing the basic financial knowledge that the financial consumers need to know in their daily life and how to identify and prevent financial risks. Specifically, that includes financial sector rules, regulations and policies, deposit and lending knowledge, knowledge on bond retail business of the commercial banks, payments and settlements, credit information, RMB banknote and coin, state treasury business, anti-money laundering, gold and precious metal, foreign exchange, consumer rights protection, and introduction to the PBC Monetary Policy Committee, particularly its responsibilities and how it carries out its work.

During the financial literacy education month, the PBC Headquarter will organize events to bring financial knowledge to colleges, villages, government agencies, and the military camps, work together with the China Union Pay and Shanghai Gold Exchange to spread financial knowledge on specialized topics, such as bank cards, gold and precious metal, and etc. The branch offices will organize the financial institutions and payment institutions to launch events in various kinds of venues, such as campus, village, community, government departments, military camps, factories, department stores, and markets to reach out to the targeted audience and spread financial knowledge. The financial institutions and payment institutions will also organize their own financial literacy education events based on the specific situations in their locality, the demographic structure, income and education level of the local population.

In order to make the financial literacy education month a success, the PBC has made detailed arrangements with the branch offices, the participating financial institutions and payment institutions. The PBC has put forward the following requirements. First of all, the events should reach out to the folks at the grass-root level, respond to the practical need of the local population, and focus on introducing the financial knowledge that are acutely needed by the people. Second, the events should be organized on an economic basis and stress practicality and effectiveness. Third, in terms of the form and content, the events shall strictly follow the public service principle so that financial literacy education events are strictly separated from the sales and marketing activities of financial institutions and payment institutions. Fourth, pamphlets and other materials for the events should be easy to understand, vividly written, and contain reasonable amount of information so that the majority of financial consumers can easily understand and accurately grasp the content. Fifth, overlapping or duplicating events shall be avoided to make efficient use of the resources. The central bank’s financial literacy education month shall be consolidated with the similar education events of other regulatory authorities, government agencies, industry associations and organized in an integrated way. Sixth, competent staff members shall be made available to make sure that financial consumer complaints to be lodged during the education events of this month are promptly and effectively handled.