Financial literacy is a global topic and, in today’s world, a necessary life skill. As a financial institution, money management is our people’s strength. We harness this asset by passing on our knowledge to society as we believe that having a solid grasp of financial knowledge enables people to make sound financial decisions and reduce risks.
Why financial literacy
My Finance Coach Malaysia
In 2012, Allianz Malaysia partnered with the My Finance Coach (“MFC”) Stiftung GmbH to implement the MFC programme in Malaysia. Apart from the societal impact of promoting financial education amongst young people in Malaysia, MFC also supports Allianz Malaysia’s aim to create a sustainable volunteering culture amongst its employees.
All volunteers need to undergo a training session before they can be certified as Finance Coaches. The training encompasses general pedagogical methods, presentation skills as well as the specific content of finance and economics modules such as ‘Shopping’, ‘History of Money’, ‘Saving’, ‘Planning’ and ‘Online and Finances’, amongst others.
MFC aims to improve general financial literacy among children and young people and to prevent them from falling into debt. As of 2014, MFC Malaysia reached 4,628 students through 118 classes in 47 schools and organisations.
MFC relies on employee volunteers who are trained as Finance Coaches that enter into schools and non-profit organisations to coach on financial matters using the MFC materials. The methodology and materials are developed under the guidance of education and economics experts in Germany, then localised and translated for the Malaysian context.
Before teaching, all volunteers are required to sign and adhere to a Code of Conduct which strictly prohibits any commercial activity in classes and also emphasises respect for the rights of children. As of 2014, 285 of our employees signed up for the program and 175 have taught a class. The programme is overseen by the non-profit My Finance Coach Foundation with its head office in Germany.
The My Finance Coach Foundation
My Finance Coach Stiftung GmbH, a non-profit foundation, was founded on 1 October 2010 in Munich by partner companies Allianz SE, Grey Advertising Ltd and McKinsey & Company Inc. with the aim of improving general financial literacy among children and young people and preventing young people from getting into debt. The non-profit initiative has since had considerable success, cooperating with over 30 organisations in Germany and gaining the support of Deutsche Kreditbank, Haniel, KPMG and Volkswagen Financial Services. In 2011, the German UNESCO Commission declared My Finance Coach an official project of the UN Decade of “Education for Sustainable Development”.
Pintar Foundation Sponsorship
As an effort to promote financial literacy amongst young people, we sponsored an activity station in the latest edition of Pintar Foundation (“PINTAR”)’s Mobile Learning Unit (“PMLU”) which was launched in March and April 2015.
The PMLU is a bus converted into a fun learning space, aimed to provoke action and thought among students of schools supported by PINTAR, a non-profit organisation dedicated towards providing access to quality education for rural and under-served schools in Malaysia. The theme for 2015/2016 is “Promoting Intelligence”, featuring six traits of intelligence: verbal, logical, musical, visual, kinaesthetic and emotional.
We sponsor the Logical Intelligence Activity Station on one of the PMLUs, focusing on the topic of financial literacy. A mock shopping aisle complete with barcode scanner is set up where children can learn to shop for a specified purpose within a certain budget. Also available is the Savings Planner, which teaches students to plan for their savings goal by calculating how long it will take them to reach that goal.
The PMLUs will be travelling across Peninsular Malaysia throughout 2015 and 2016 to visit over 300 schools under PINTAR’s school adoption programme.
