KCB and VISA INTERNATIONAL in Financial Literacy Deal

KCB Foundation has partnered with VISA International and the world’s largest student organization, AIESEC to run a financial literacy project dubbed ‘Minding Your Money’, aimed at giving youth an opportunity to learn how to effectively manage their money.

Speaking to journalists at the launch KCB Group Chief Executive Martin Oduor-Otieno said the bank’s role in this partnership, apart from the shared financial responsibility of supporting logistics and hospitality, would also include providing facilitators for training sessions from among its employees, setting up sales and information tents at the venues to provide valuable tips to the youth, as well as meeting the costs of merchandizing and publicity.

“This is a very important initiative because the youth of this country form about 60% of the entire population and by educating them we are creating future stewards of this economy. This group has distinctive consumer preferences and spending habits.  KCB, through the KCB Foundation, is committed to supporting the development of entrepreneurship among our people and will spend over Ksh13 million to support this area across the region,” said Oduor-Otieno.

The Chief Executive noted that as widely recognized brands in the financial services sector, touching the lives of millions of people in Africa and the world, both directly and indirectly, KCB and VISA International have a big role to play in financial education in the country and the region. 

A past study by Consumer Insight showed that young people in Kenya spend more than nine billion shillings a year, which is mostly spent on snacks, beverages, educational materials and mobile phone airtime.

However, according to an American Consumers for Education and Competition report, nearly 90 percent of high school students graduate without knowledge of basic financial literacy. The program is designed to teach financial literacy skills not taught in typical school curriculums.

“As key players in the financial services sector, it is our responsibility to take the lead in creating awareness and providing education to the youth on the value of financial services and products as well as the importance of cultivating a responsible financial management culture among themselves. Earnings start while many of these youth are in University – with their allowances, bursaries, research, and part-time jobs. However, ideal management of these resources is lacking and often at this stage a foundation is laid for poor resource management practices in the future,” said the Chief Executive.

Together with VISA, KCB will jointly sponsor a series of one-day financial literacy workshops to be conducted at three universities at a cost of Ksh440, 000. The workshops aim at empowering the youth to make appropriate decisions regarding their personal finances. This being a pilot project, the workshops will be conducted at - University of Nairobi, Strathmore University and Daystar University and will target a maximum of 200 students in each University. Each workshop will run for a maximum of 2 hours with presentations being conducted by financial experts from both KCB and Visa.

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