Dear Delegate,

The pace of financial innovation presents central bankers and regulators with a new challenge: how to educate and involve the public in understanding financial markets.

An educated public will make better decisions about savings and pensions, and will have more realistic expectations of what the central bank and regulatory authorities can and cannot achieve. Many regulators and central banks are now explicitly tasked to deliver the ‘financial education’ this requires.

The challenge is making this a reality, across a range of different audiences and at a time when crises in markets may lead to unrealistic calls for policy action.

This four-day intensive course focuses on the key elements of financial education initiatives, providing concrete examples from programmes in central banks, financial regulators and the public sector broadly.

Delegates will be given the opportunity to compare a range of approaches for the delivery of economic education and investigate the new thinking that underpins such projects.

Each of the four days features a series of case-study and workshop sessions built around developing and delivering a strategy for financial education.

The panel of expert speakers combines practical central banking experience and expertise in the technical aspects of payment systems, as well as views from private sector experts. The format encourages delegates to quiz the presenters, raise issues and discuss solutions.

Since 1997, Central Banking Publications has hosted thought leadership seminars for over 1,500 senior policymakers from central banks, ministries of finance and financial regulatory agencies around the world and senior officials from more than 100 countries have attended these meetings over the past ten years.

We look forward to welcoming you to Cambridge on 2 September.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Pringle Managing Director

Challenges in economic education and financial literacy
Dara Duguay
Director of the Office of Financial Education, Citi

For anyone living in a market economy, being able to make sound financial decisions is a basic survival skill and central banks are uniquely placed to provide neutral non-partisan information. In this opening session, the speaker will lead a discussion to identify the key issues of interest to the group to be addressed in the ensuing discussions and workshops. The umbrella of financial education and consumer awareness covers a variety of views, so what does it mean to be financially literate? Discussion will consider what the appropriate objectives for financial education programmes are, the best tools for achieving these goals and how their achievement can be measured.

The educational toolkit: a case study of the Fed
Sandra Braustein
Director, Division of Consumer and Community Affairs, Federal Reserve Board

As a central bank, bank regulator, supervisor, and a research institution, the Federal Reserve has a variety of channels through which it furthers financial education and consumer awareness. This session, in the form of a case-study, will highlight how America’s central bank utilises these to further financial education efforts at the national, regional, and local levels. Discussion will encompass the use and promotion of research on consumer behaviour, and how to identify effective models and improve programme design and delivery.

Financial education in schools
Wendy van den Hende
Chief Executive, Personal Finance Education Group

Few would argue against the need to invest in the next generation by ensuring that they leave school as financially capable citizens. Yet how in practice can this be done? This session will draw on the speaker’s experience with the Personal Finance Education Group in the UK, in supporting financial education with children and young people through four major initiatives funded by the Financial Services Authority, HSBC, the Department for Children Schools and Families and the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Developing partnerships with the public and private sectors
Robert F. Duvall
President and CEO, National Council on Economic Education

To effectively reach out about economic issues and increase consumer awareness the central bank must look beyond its own walls. This session addresses who the key stakeholders in this process are such as finance ministries, educational organisations, consumer representative bodies and the private sector. The speaker will consider how different organisations with varying mandates can work together to fund coordinated campaigns. More broadly, the group will discuss how partnerships between government, central banks and regulators, and the financial sector can be developed.

Choosing tools for public action campaigns
Bernhard Probst
Manager, Further Education, LerNetz AG

To improve Financial or Economic Literacy a successful action is to develop learning arrangements for students. This session will cover different didactical approaches, three current or finished projects and experiences in introducing Financial and Economic Literacy in Switzerland. The presentation is structured in three parts, focusing on the following questions and aspects: Firstly, which are the key issues of selected target groups? What are appropriate ways to determine the project strategy and to deduce the learning-goals? Secondly, the base of every initiative is a solid didactical concept, a communication plan including stakeholder and issue management. We show examples of different didactical approaches and talk about experiences in communicating the activities. Thirdly, based on the didactical concept the concept of the media is evaluated. Three examples illustrate the concrete implementation.

Raising awareness in consumer lending
Peter Schiffer
Deputy Director General, Hungarian Financial Supervisory Authority

Today, consumers are bombarded with offers for financial products. Financial service providers have a social responsibility to practice responsible consumer lending and it is therefore important for central banks to consider educating them as well as providing information to the public, from explaining terminology to telling consumers about their rights. This session looks at how these twin objectives can be met in practice.

Educating the public about the central bank
Speaker to be confirmed

The management of expectations is recognised as the keystone of modern monetary-policy making and a key element of any financial education programme must be to educate the public about what the central bank can and cannot do. However distilling what is often technical or academic language founded on a range of assumptions for the mass market presents a variety of challenges. This session looks at the range of strategies employed within the group to consider how central banks can best go about informing their stakeholders about their own role as stewards of the national economy and financial system.

Organising the financial education function
Workshop led by the chairman, Dara Duguay

Critical to the success of financial education is the need to identify and establish ‘ownership’. In this session, delegates will work in syndicate group to discuss key questions: who should be involved with determining the content of a financial education programme and set the goals for a particular project? Is financial education best handled as part of public relations and community affairs, or in an independent unit? Delegates will be asked to report back to the group on the discussion they had and conclusions they reached.

Getting senior management buy-in
Hans-Helmut Kotz
Member of the Executive Board, Deutsche Bundesbank

Central banks offer a wealth of resources for the effective provision of financial education programmes: its expert staff, reputation and profile can all be harnessed. However these are scarce resources, and central bankers face challenges in getting the buy-in from senior management for allocating budget and staff to such projects. In this session, a member of the executive board of Germany’s central bank will lead a discussion on how central banks can use their resources to deliver financial literacy and how to increase support for this within the institution.

Bridging the generation gap
Laura Levine
Executive Director, Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy

In order to ensure that financial education has an impact on the national and international level it is important to start financial literacy programmes with the youth, in this session we will explore how the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy designs and delivers its educational programmes for the next generation of Americans and the way in which central banks can partner the work of such organisations.

Tailoring the message to key audiences
Annamaria Lusardi
Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College

A complicating factor in targeting campaigns is different levels of education within a society. This session examines how the level of economic and financial awareness can vary between demographic segments. As effective education is facilitated by a move from general to targeted programmes the speaker will review the extent to which such central bank initiatives can be targeted at specific groups and how the cultural and psychological barriers of the least accessible groups can be overcome.

Measuring success in financial education programmes
Annamaria Lusardi
Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College

As a function which does not generate an immediate revenue stream, a key challenge for those providing financial education is to measure performance and demonstrate value. This session will investigate the ways in which the effectiveness of financial can be quantified and what benchmarks should be used to mark the progress of individuals in their journey towards financial literacy.

Web-based education: personal economic calculators
Chris Pond
Financial Capability Director, Financial Services Authority

Web-based media offer unique opportunities for interaction between the central bank and the target audience of financial education programmes. In recent years, one example that has proved very popular and successful is the use of personal economic ‘calculators’. These tools, whether they are geared towards the calculation of inflation in personal consumption baskets, determining the size and nature of a mortgage or structure of a savings or pension plan, allow individuals to ‘personalise’ economic realities, based on a number of assumptions. Their interactive and dynamic nature also means that users are engaged and can test the impact of various changes in the economy and their own financial situation on key economic decisions. The challenge, however, is to ensure that the message these tools deliver is never misleading and that the specifications are frequently adjusted to reflect economic changes. This session will consider a case study of FSA’s mortgage calculator.

Course conclusion
Dara Duguay
Director of the Office of Financial Education, Citi

The group will finish the week by reviewing the lessons learned. Delegates will be asked to review the week's discussions and formulate key points to condense into an action plan based on the key themes and issues highlighted throughout the week.