As a founding member of the Youth Financial Capability Group, The London Institute of Banking & Finance has today issued the following shared statement.
An open letter from the Youth Financial Capability Group
Over a decade ago, the UK set up its Dormant Assets Scheme, putting assets lying idle to good use.
Since then, £892m has been released to address some of the country’s most pressing social and environmental challenges – including breaking down barriers to work for disadvantaged young people and increasing access to affordable credit.
As the government closes a consultation on how the next £880m of dormant assets should be deployed, we’re calling for financial education for young people to be funded.
This should not be an issue. Financial Inclusion and Youth are two of the three existing priorities. What's needed is a change in interpretation of priorities and of execution.
Despite the Statement of Intent in March 2018 – from The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, Office for Civil Society, the Treasury, Department of Work and Pensions, National Lottery and Financial Conduct Authority "to address financial capability and financial inclusion together" – financial capability and education have not yet benefitted from this funding.
Half of young people worry they will never be financially stable. A decade of austerity and the economic fallout of the pandemic has disproportionately impacted this age group.
The repercussions of poor money choices are far reaching. Money links with all aspects of our lives, including:
- our relationships with others
- self-confidence, and
- career prospects.
In these challenging times for young people, building financial knowledge, skills and confidence, is an investment in their future wellbeing and helps drive social change.
Effective financial education and collaboration with schools, youth organisations and local authorities works to improve financial capability and confidence. We welcome the Government’s intention to focus dormant assets on systemic change and urge them to support financial education for young people.
Extra funding would allow proven interventions – such as those from members of the Youth Financial Capability Group – to scale and underpin our vision of reaching all UK five to 25-year-olds with meaningful and effective financial education to create a financially capable generation.
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