Financial literacy an asset for the future

Budgeting and Money management is better taught in school to allow students to use this knowledge to their advantage when they leave school.

Over 400 Students at Mt Diamond Secondary School took part in Bank South Pacific’s (BSP) Banking Education and Financial Literacy Training that was conducted in August.

The training included Budgeting and Money management, but also included information on BSP Products and services and how it can assist customers in managing their money. BSP’s Waigani Banking Centre further assisted students to open Sumatin accounts.

The school principal Martin Seve  thanked BSP for the initiative and encouraged students to take advantage of this training and to discipline their mind in terms of financial management once they leave school and get employed or start a small business.

Providing the right financial advice to every Papua New Guinean is one way in ensuring that we are able to manage money and build financial wealth.

BSP Financial Literacy Trainer, John Gavuli said, “With the basic skills of budgeting and savings, we hope that we can help these participants to be more aware and better manage their money.

“The desired outcome for the delivery of this training is to get everyone to be financially independent, to understand the basics of budgeting and saving, and to start applying these skills to their current lifestyle”.

Financial Literacy trainings were also conducted for the Ginigoada Business Development Ltd Bus 6, Women In Business (WiB) and the Widows Association Inc.

Over 600 participants were trained. Among the participants was Janet Minty from the Ginigoada Bus 6 group who was in the informal sector, selling goods at a market table at home.  

She admitted she knew how to make money and contribute to support her family, but added that many of her expenses could be better planned after having gone through with this training.  

She said, “The knowledge of how to make a budget and plan for expected expenses was a good concept to learn and understand. Thank you BSP for this very educational and empowering training.”

Another Woman in Business participant, Wailly Pomaleu said, “This information is very helpful to us in improving savings and budgeting practices.

We have established small businesses, however, when doing up our budget we still need more emphasis on adjusting what necessary expenses to invest on in order to have a good return on our business.”

As a responsible financial institution, BSP continues to support Bank of Papua New Guinea's (BPNG) drive to promote financial inclusion programs in PNG.

The training includes basics in Budgeting, Savings and Mobile Money, Financial Literacy Training modules produced by BPNG for the Microfinance Expansion Project (MEP), supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Australian Government (DFAT) and Papua New Guinea Government (GoPNG).

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Press Release