Financial Literacy Best Practice

International Personal Finance

01 Index

ForewordGerard RyanChief Executive Officer

Hungary The Family Programme

03

Czech Republic ABC of Family Finance

05

Poland All about the dough

07

Romania Financial Stability Programme

09

Bulgaria Family Finance

10

Lithuania - Students Budget App- Family Finance Academy

11

Mexico Let’s talk money

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At International Personal Finance, we provide credit responsibly to over 2.6 million customers who want to borrow small sums and repay in manageable, affordable amounts. Our products are financially inclusive and often appeal to consumers who may be under served by mainstream banking. Our personal experience with these customers has shown us that although they may be very skilled at household budgeting they have typically received no formal financial education; limiting their ability to engage with the financial sector.

There are varying levels of financial literacy across the markets where our home credit business exists. However, as a majority of our home credit customers are under served by banks and generally have little to no credit history, financial education is an important issue for our customers. Knowing this, IPF has developed financial

education programmes over the past 10 years across all the markets in which our home credit business operates. These programmes aim to help our customers and the wider communities we operate be more financially literate and to use this knowledge to their advantage. These programmes provide the skills, knowledge and confidence necessary for making responsible, informed decisions about their long-term financial well-being.

By ensuring our customers and the general public are equipped with the skills needed to manage their own finances, we not only enable them to engage with the financial sector, we also secure our business as a responsible provider of consumer credit. Developing a consumer base that is informed and knowledgeable allows us to further engage with our customers and provide products that undoubtedly suit their needs.

This report provides a snapshot of the various financial education programmes being delivered in the local markets we operate in. I trust you will find it informative and hope that it inspires further achievements in the field of financial education.

Gerard RyanChief Executive Officer

02ForewordGerard Ryan — Chief Executive Officer

ForewordGerard RyanChief Executive Officer

The Family Treasure Programme co-operates closely with professional and public affairs contacts from the government, financial sector and NGOs in order to help develop and deliver practical education tools for the public school system.

About 30,000 households and 300 professionals (teachers, social workers, etc.) have benefited from the programme by participating in training directly or indirectly (i.e. visiting a session by a trainer who was trained through this programme).

The objective of the programme is to improve the financial stability of households by enhancing financial and economic skills. Additionally, this programme aims to improve the overall economy by encouraging a more financially savvy population.

A few outputs of the programme to date include:

• Extensive training materials and curriculum including a role-playing game.

• Three extensive studies (dated 2015, 2013, 2011) about the financial literacy of Hungarian young people, based on representative surveys conducted in secondary schools.

03 Hungary Project: The Family Treasure Programme

HungaryThe Family Treasure Programme

The Family Treasure curriculum has been cited as best practice by various experts, including professionals from the Money Compass Foundation of the Central Bank of Hungary and the State Audit Office of Hungary. The curriculum is publicly available from the website and Facebook page of the programme, also uploaded to the National Education Portal and it is used by many teachers, social workers and community education professionals across the country.

04

The Family Treasure Curriculum

05 Czech Republic Project: ABC of Family Finance

ABC of Family Finance is a financial education programme of Provident Czech Republic that has been running since 2010.

Since it started, more than 5000 members of community have benefited from its activities. Initially providing free, face-to-face training on main financial and consumer relevant topics, the programme has evolved to focus on wider-reaching online training and budgeting tools.

Czech RepublicABC of Family Finance

“ This programme has attracted many partners from influential organisations such as the British Chamber of Commerce, the Debt Advisory Centre, Czech Consumers’ Association and the Financial Arbitrator of the Czech Republic.”

abc06

“ In 2014, the programme received funding from the European Social Fund in a call to increase the financial literacy and consumers’ rights awareness among public.”

— Katerina Cerna Financial Education Manager Provident Czech Republic

ABC of Family Finance continues to enhance the knowledge of the adult population by focusing on three main areas of financial education: basic legal rights, responsible borrowing and family budgeting. The programme content is regularly updated to reflect the latest changes in legislation and aims to continue supporting its participants in managing their finances better and preventing indebtedness.

Since September 2016, Provident Polska have been running a brand new financial education project aimed at targeting new consumer groups through a whole new approach.

Provident Polska established the blog All about the Dough to give three young bloggers the platform to talk about their experiences in managing their financial affairs to date. The bloggers come from different socio economic backgrounds and on the blog they discuss the problems they face when it comes to their own personal finances and describe the solutions they use to overcome any issues. Here they provide relevant and practical advice to readers.

Through this blog, readers will learn how to effectively handle budget planning, saving money and making financial decisions. In addition to advice coming from the young bloggers, external experts have been invited to provide useful information and offer tips for readers as well.

www.coztymhajsem.pl

PolandAll about the dough

Project: All about the dough07 Poland

Provident Polska expect this blog will be a credible source of information for readers, both young and old. To do this, bloggers receive as much independence and space as they need in order to boost their creativity. Additionally, the blog authors also receive a great deal of support from Provident Polska in the form of an editor who defines the topics, plans the posts in advance and is responsible for ensuring the final texts are aligned with the CSR team.

Currently the blog is live and is being promoted on Facebook. Provident Polska have plans to increase the blog’s visibility and reach on the internet by holding a number of small competitions and events on social media; with the overall goal to reach 10,000-12,000 readers in the next seven months.

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www.coztymhajsem.pl

09 Romania Project: Financial Stability Programme

RomaniaFinancial Stability Programme

Provident Romania’s Financial Stability programme was launched in 2012 with the objective to promote financial literacy among adults from urban communities.

This programme supports the ‘8 Decisions for Welfare Caravan’ which has hosted a wide range of seminars organised across eight cities in 2015, and more than thirty cities since 2012. The financial education seminars were free to attend and provided interactive, direct training to anyone who was looking to improve their financial literacy. Employees, agents and IPF customers were all invited to participate in various seminars and over 9,000 people participated.

These seminars were greatly successful in gaining the interest of Romanian media. IPF organized lunches and meetings with the media to explain the benefits of financial education and the rationale behind the programme and website. We obtained involvement from all media, from traditional mainstream media (both local and central) to social, lifestyle and entertainment mass media (such as blogs). Among the participants to the meetings were the British Ambassador in Bucharest, representatives of NGOs and entrepreneurs.

The Financial Stability programme evolved in 2015 with the implementation of online financial education activities. Over 115,000 people visited the website sigurantafinanciara.ro which is an online resource centre for financial and entrepreneurial education.

10BulgariaProject: Family Finance

BulgariaFamily Finance

In 2014, Provident Bulgaria launched an online platform for financial education called Family Finance which received 40,000 unique visitors and nearly 90,000 page views in 2016.

The platform has a devoted following on Facebook where the Family Finance page has over 2,500 likes. Provident Bulgaria also organized financial literacy workshops attended by 190 participants in five Bulgarian cities.

All workshops were free of charge and open to agents, customers and anyone interested in financial literacy. A booklet containing five of the most popular articles from the Experts’ Advice section in the platform was issued and given away at the seminars.

In 2014, Provident Bulgaria commissioned a nationally representative financial literacy survey conducted by GfK Bulgaria. This survey revealed that nearly half of Bulgarians do not know the main indicators used for cost of credit calculation. Additionally, 28% have never taken a loan and 66% prefer a fixed interest rate; though only half of all respondents know what this interest rate actually means. Provident Bulgaria presented the results of this financial literacy survey at a dedicated media event and subsequently participated in various financial education events and round table discussions.

Provident Lithuania worked together with applied science students of Vilnius University to create a mobile application aimed at enhancing the financial management skills of students.

The Students’ Budget application is a tool aimed at improving financial literacy among students by teaching them how to manage their own finances and budgets. Through the application, students can input their income and expenses to help track what they are bringing in versus what they are spending.

There is also a virtual piggy bank where users can build up their savings. This application is free of charge and all Windows and Android phone users can download it directly.

11 Lithuania Project: Students’ Budget App

LithuaniaStudents' Budget App

LithuaniaFamily Finance Academy

In 2016, Provident Lithuania developed Family Finance Academy which is an interactive, online test covering day-to-day family finances.

Users were invited to take part and test their knowledge and financial behaviour. The results of the test provide users with tailored advice and helpful materials on a number of key topic areas including budgeting and how to save and borrow responsibly.

All the advice and materials were prepared in cooperation with the Alliance of Lithuanian Consumer Associations. During the first three months of being released, 6000 visitors visited the website and more than 900 participated in the test.

Provident Lithuania plan on upgrading the website by refreshing the educational material and the online test to make it more interactive and attractive to visitors.

12LithuaniaProject: Family Finance Academy

Improving financial literacy in Mexico is a key initiative to achieve economic stability. Provident Mexico has made improving financial literacy a key focus for 2016 and 2017. In the first half of 2016 more than 12,000 people in our communities have benefited from our financial education programme.

Through strategic alliances, more communities and more people have engaged with specific programmes, conferences and workshops.

These alliances have had a significant impact including:

• Fundación Nemi: 6,141 teenagers from public schools in Puebla participated in the Strengthen Your Goals conferences throughout May and June 2016.

• Museo Interactivo de Economía (MIDE): 2,500 kids, teenagers and adults from 14 schools and 7 non-profit organisations in Mexico City participated in a Savings Adventure workshop.

• Save the Children: 2,549 students and parents in Xalapa and Veracruz participated in the Let’s Talk Money workshop.

• Junior Achievement Puebla: 533 students were part of The Advantages of Staying in School With Financial Literacy programme.

13 Mexico Project: Lets’ Talk Money

MexicoLet's Talk Money

Since 2008 more than 35,000 people have benefited from the various programmes. In 2016 alone, more than 36,000 people benefited from our Let's talk Money programme.

• Junior Achievement Jalisco: 680 students from Tonala High School took part in The Company in Action with Social Responsibility workshop.

• Let’s Talk Money workshop: 70 parents, students and staff from Universidad Ipeth, Banco de Alimentos de Veracruz and Productos Carcason took part in this workshop.

• Online certification for volunteers:

Through this programme, volunteers are able to sign up and become certified in delivering Provident Mexico’s financial literacy workshops; increasing the reach and attendance of these workshops.

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International Personal Finance plc Number Three, Leeds City Office Park Meadow Lane, Leeds, LS11 5BD

Financial Literacy Best Practice

International Personal Finance

“ By ensuring our customers and the general public are equipped with the skills needed to manage their own finances, we not only enable them to engage with the financial sector, we also secure our business as a responsible provider of consumer credit.”

— Gerard Ryan Chief Executive Officer

katerina.cerna@provident.cz +420 7258 31084