Photo: 123RF
The Retirement Commission has brought together hundreds of financial service providers to help New Zealanders grow their money and build resilience.
It has launched a new National Strategy for Financial Capability that sets out goals and projects to be taken on by banks, fintechs, and community organisations.
The goals include encouraging customers to save and invest and promoting options to protect against financial shocks.
Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson said people have been hammered by high inflation, pandemic related hardship, and unemployment, and businesses want to help.
"The interest in this kind of collaboration is rising because the problems we're all dealing with are quite gnarly ones now right.
"So, the only way you can get to wicked problems like people not having enough money for retirement because of all the life shocks, not saving enough because of their economic circumstances, not understanding how growing money works which is around education, the more we can tackle these together and think collectively the better."
The strategy is a three-year plan involving more than 900 representatives from the financial services sector and builds upon the previous scheme put in place in 2021.
Wrightson said there were plenty of projects in the pipeline for providers to get involved in.
"There will be a special women's project again. There was one in the last strategy which was very successful where the industry which is more male than female had an entire month, courtesy of the FSC [Financial Services Council of NZ] and a women's group, thinking about how they might serve their women employees and women customers better.
"There will be a focus on increasing contributions and participation in KiwiSaver for young people, there will be Money Month again... and we're working on a consistent financial education core competency framework for young people so that what's taught in schools will have a framework around it."
The four goals of the strategy are:
- Supporting people to grow their money
- Helping build resilience for the unexpected
- Lifting financial capability through education and training
- Leveraging collective impact
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