Canstar announces Youth Banking and Education Award winner

media release

May 22nd 2014

This little piggy went to market…

CANSTAR releases annual Youth Banking Awards today, finding that savvy kids can set themselves up for life with a great $$ education.

While low deposit account interest rates – reflecting the low Official Cash Rate – have not provided much savings incentive in recent years, fostering an enthusiasm for saving and an overall awareness of financial issues is vital for putting in place good financial habits that can last a lifetime. New Zealand’s financial institutions have an important role to play in helping to shape the money attitudes and behaviours of children and each year CANSTAR assess New Zealand’s financial institutions on the quality of their youth banking and education products and programs. This year, for the second time running, ASB Bank (ASB) has claimed the award for outstanding youth banking and education.

“In addition to its financial products, our Research team was particularly impressed with the quality of ASB’s financial literacy program,GetWise,” said Derek Bonnar, CANSTAR General Manager – New Zealand. Mr Bonnar. “Via workshops of 45 minutes to one hour duration, ASB Bank works with schools to help teach financial literacy concepts to their students, across the various school levels and to date ASB haveworked with over 387,000 students in close to 1,200 schools nationwide, including 495 schools in rural or non-metro areas. This is a fantastic achievement.”

Student financial literacy is also on the political agenda, with the Ministry of Education enhancing the recently-developed financial literacy teaching resources within schools, with the launch of a Financial Capability Progressions toolkit in April this year. The toolkit provides a range of materials that are aligned to curriculum levels 1-8.

“As parents we all want what’s best for our children,” said Mr Bonnar. “A component of that is teaching them money management skills to help them avoid some of the debt and financial stress pitfalls that are out there. Along with schools, financial institutions have the technology and expertise to be able to deliver on this and again, we congratulate ASB for leading the way.”

CANSTAR’s Youth Banking report, including an interview with Roger Beaumont, ASB Executive General Manager Marketing & Communications can be accessed online: www.canstar.co.nz

ENDS

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