The Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion (CEFI) has delivered financial literacy training for 16 employees from Department of Finance (DoF) in Port Moresby.
The training conducted by CEFI provided key techniques of savings and budgeting, setting financial goals, developing family budget, accounting risks and spending wisely.
CEFI executive director Saliya J Ranasinghe encouraged the staff from the DoF to be role models and spread the message of savings and budgeting.
“Be role models and convey this message (what you have learnt from this training) as much as possible and I hope this training will help you all and change your life in the way you manage money,” said Ranasignghe.
“Our (CEFI’s) main intention is to bring people to the financial mainstream. When we started there was 85 percent of the people in this country that did not have a bank account; we only had 1.3 million bank accounts in the country but now it has come down to 65 (percent) and we have about 3.5 million bank accounts in Papua New Guinea now,” Ranasignhe told the staff from DoF.
DoF Deputy Secretary Special Projects, Samuel Penias, thanked CEFI for making time available to deliver the training to his team.
“We were asked to run a financial literacy training and this is the starting point and we don’t want to go back and reinvent the wheel because CEFI has already done that,” Penias stated.
“We understand there are a lot of issues people, especially in the rural areas, are trying to access financial services. We want to be part of Mr Ranasignhe’s team and drive the agenda of financial inclusion in the country.”
CEFI is delivering financial literacy retail training and Training-of-Trainers (TOT) in partnership with registered training institutions, non-government organisations, faith-based organisations, civil-based organisations, government institutions, private enterprises, resource sector and commodity boards.
CEFI’s vision is to create financial inclusivity by promoting excellence in financial services, innovative delivery channels and facilitating financial literacy.
(Staff from the Department of Finance with CEFI Senior Trainer, Jill Pijui, showing their certificates after completing the financial literacy training)