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BRUSSELS 2007! Workshop 3: "Banks at School – Can Consumers be Educated?" - OUTLINE
W3: BANKS AT SCHOOL – CAN CONSUMERS BE EDUCATED?

Saul Schwartz (Carleton University, Canada, Chair); Dara Duguay (Citi); Anne Schelhowe (SchülerBanking, Germany); Peter Avery (OECD); Erik Pointilliart (IEFP, France); Lauren Willis (Loyola Law School, USA); Toni Williams (Kent Law School, UK)

Held on Friday Sept14th at 3.30pm, concurrent workshop is W4 on Scoring.

Financial education represents precious common ground on which creditors and debtors, government agencies and non-governmental organizations can stand together. Today’s society requires that consumers think for themselves about important issues such as old age security, housing and education and they must therefore come to understand private pensions, home mortgages and student loans. Even more prosaic matters such as obtaining a mobile phone or managing a credit card require non-trivial financial skills. As a result, and with widespread support from all stakeholders, a number of European school boards have implemented financial education for thirteen- and fourteen-year old students.

This workshop focuses on one important aspect of financial education: “How can banks and schools interact to provide financial education?” First, we should discuss why banks get involved with school projects and what they hope to achieve by doing so. Second, what are the risks and rewards for schools, and school children, in having banks participate in financial education projects? Third, who between the bank and the pupils is actually giving the other the lesson? Finally, under what circumstances and with what common objective can banks and school fruitfully co-operate to provide financial education?

Some participants will want to take a broader view by addressing the question “what can financial education realistically achieve?” For some, as long as consumers have easy access to information about financial products and can easily understand that information, there is little need for consumer protection in financial services, but an alternate view is that there are severe limits, both practical and cognitive, on the extent to which consumers can absorb and use the required information; thus, consumers may be open to exploitation by creditors and may need substantive protection from government and non-governmental organizations.

ID: 40036
Author(s): iff
Publication date: 14/09/07
   
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Link to Abstract from Speaker Lauren Willis (en)
 

Created: 16/08/07. Last changed: 03/09/07.
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