By Lindsay Torrico
Executive Director, ABA Foundation
For America’s teens and young adults, the “real world” is right around the corner. To help them turn the corner with confidence, America’s banks are equipping them with personal finance knowledge to last a lifetime. Through the ABA Foundation’s Get Smart About Credit program, banks across the country teach the next generation essential skills like budgeting, understanding credit, paying for college and more. Get Smart About Credit Day is celebrated annually on the third Thursday of October and is an industry-wide movement to expand the reach of financial education.
At the ABA Foundation, we help bankers provide financial education to individuals at every age, elevate issues around affordable housing and community development, and achieve corporate social responsibility objectives to improve the well-being of their customers and their communities. Since 1997, the ABA Foundation’s financial education initiatives have reached over 11 million young people nationwide and Get Smart About Credit alone has made an impression on more than 150,000 students both in and out of the classroom.
This year, we are excited to provide banks with infographics and videos to equip young people with identify theft prevention skills. With financial scams targeting students on the rise, the foundation released materials providing youth with information on common scholarship, student loan and employment scams and tips on how to avoid falling victim.
To promote these new resources, we partnered with Experian on a #CreditChat on October 19 on the scams facing college students and how to steer clear of them. We also hosted a virtual panel presentation on October 20 with speakers from Ally Bank and Mercantile Bank on wealth gaps and financial literacy disparities among minority populations and shared about strategies to improve equity among underserved communities. Key highlights included collaborations with Upward Bound programs to integrate financial education with college preparation, and utilizing gamification to encourage students to consider real world scenarios and plan for the future.
If you are interested in more information on Get Smart about Credit Day or hosting a local bank to bring these skills to your students, contact the ABA Foundation. View standalone resources at aba.com/Consumers.
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