At Nordea, we want to help people build the financial skills that are important for financial stability and a good quality of life. Our employees teach these skills to thousands of children and young people every year.
One of the major focus areas within our community engagement is supporting people in building financial skills – not only having specific knowledge and skills but also having the confidence to make decisions to achieve financial well-being. When people manage their own finances well, they help create a secure future for themselves and contribute to stable economies.
This strong correlation is reflected in our yearly survey, The Nordic Pulse, where we ask young adults how well they feel they are in control of their economic situation, if they feel they have the skills to manage it, and how optimistic they are about their future. The latest data shows that young people feel they have limited control of and skills to manage their finances compared with older generations.
At Nordea, we want to help improve financial literacy in the countries where we are present. As part of our community engagement, we work extensively with schools and via different partnerships across the Nordics to help children and young people lay the foundation for a healthy and successful financial life. All our employees are given the opportunity to spend 16 working hours a year volunteering in Nordea-run/co-run initiatives.
Below, you can see some of the major initiatives, country by country:
We participate in the Finans Danmark initiative Pengeuge. In week 11, our country management and employees volunteer and teach financial skills in schools.
Pengeuge has existed since 2014 and hundreds of school classes are visited every year.
We organise the annual Taloussankari (Finance Hero) competition for school classes. Taloussankari is a collaboration between Nordea, Pörssisäätiö and Talous ja nuoret TAT.
In addition, we arrange Nordea-run personal economy classes – Oman talouden eväät -oppitunnit (Money Matters workshops) – throughout the academic year for schools.
We run our Økonomipeil programme, which focuses on young people’s ability to manage their finances well. We visit schools or invite schools to one of our offices.
In addition, we have a collaboration with Ungt Entreprenørskap where our volunteers visit Oslo schools under the Økonomi og karrierevalg programme.
Since 2008, we’ve run Ekonomipejl, a programme aimed at helping youngsters take control of their finances and get a head start in young adult life.
Having basic maths skills already at a young age is a pre-requisite for understanding and managing personal finances later in life. Therefore, we also focus on making maths more fun for all in our Matteutmaningen.
We work together with different NGOs to support digitally and financially excluded children in cooperation with Hakersi.
We also collaborate with Share the Care Foundation to build parental equality and Mamo Pracuj to support women in returning to the labour market after maternity, parental and childcare leave.
Our programme in Estonia consists of two tracks: one focuses on basic financial skills and the other focuses on financial crime prevention and how to detect different kinds of fraud and navigate safely online.
The age groups range from kindergarten to high school/upper secondary school level, with lessons conducted mainly in Estonian, but also in Finnish and Russian.
Financial literacy is about having the skill set to make sound financial decisions and ultimately achieve financial well-being. It’s about understanding various financial concepts, products and risks, and applying this understanding in real-life situations.
Examples of financial literacy skills include: