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Alade Urges Students to Imbibe Savings Culture

By BusinessNews Staff on March 16, 2014

The acting Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. Sarah Alade Thursday challenged students to imbibe a savings and investment culture in order to secure their future.

Alade, who personally took students of Model Secondary School, Maitama on financial literacy on the occasion of the Global Money Week, said introducing students and young ones to financial principle early in their lives would help them appreciate the policies of financial regulators.

Speaking to journalists shortly after her interaction with the students, she said:”We want to introduce our young ones to financial concepts; the idea of saving, investing and all the issues that you have to grapple with in life about money.

“So we want the young ones to be able to get it early in life; cultivate the habit of saving money and not spending all the time and that way, by the time they become adults, they are already familiar with what we are talking about.

“You can see we also talked about cashless, they want to know what we aim to achieve by going cashless. We don’t take children for granted; it is at this age that they need to know and when they grow up, it would have been part and parcel of them.”

Earlier, the acting CBN governor started by seeking to know from the students what they understood by bank accounts and if they operated any.

Alade, who chose to make the class rather interactive in an apparent effort to condescend to their understanding, took them through thought-provoking engagement to the excitement of the students who tried to respond correctly or otherwise questions thrown at them about financial matters.

She made them realise they don’t really have to spend all the monies they earn but develop a habit of saving part of it any bank accounts.

She also introduced them to the main concepts and roles of financial regulators in the country.

Alade therefore, challenge them to having a savings account before subsequent interaction and to put all they’ve been taught into use.

Meanwhile in Lagos, the Group Managing Director of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Mr. Emeka Emuwa who taught students of St. Mary’s Private School, Broad Street, Lagos about financial literacy for over three hours, said the bank adopted the school in furtherance of its commitment towards financial literacy in Nigeria.

The adoption of St. Mary’s by Union Bank, according to Emuwa who is also and the Chairman of the Financial Literacy and Public Enlightenment Sub-Committee of the Bankers’ Committee, involves a year-long programme of financial literacy support by the bank to the school.

“We, at Union Bank see opportunities such as this, where we are part of the process of educating our children and equipping them for the future, as a privilege,” Emuwa said.
He noted that proper financial education would empower teenagers in making sound financial decisions in the future.

“The absence of financial literacy often leads to the development of poor financial habits,” he added.

In the same vein, Wema Bank Plc yesterday adopted the Maryland Convent Primary School, Ikeja.

The Managing Director, Wema Bank, Mr. Segun Oloketuyi, also urged parents to ensure that they also teach their children about money management, saying that it was the responsibility of the larger society to teach and mentor young people on the right way to live by showing them how to save and manage their resources.
The bank also presented educational materials to the school on behalf of the CBN.

Speaking at the school, the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Mr. Kehinde Durosinmi-Etti, said the essence of the initiative was to impart knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behavior necessary to make sound financial decisions to the students.

Durosinmi-Etti said: “We have raised a team that will ensure the sustainability of this initiative which will run over the next nine months.

“As the world marches towards financial awareness through education, our bank is committed to assisting the Nigerian children to build a prosperous economic future by extending financial education and services to them early in life.”

[This Day]

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