Cyprus wants to increase youth financial awareness

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) announced this week its successful participation in this year’s Global Money Week event, an annual event seeking to promote financial literacy.

Organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the event stresses the importance of young people being financially aware, as well as the need for the continuous acquisition of knowledge and behaviour that lead to making healthy financial decisions.

“CySEC’s participation in Global Money Week was a great opportunity to stress in general the importance of financial education and address the issue of financial illiteracy, both from an early age and through lifelong learning, and in this way to ensure that citizens have the necessary knowledge to effectively manage their finances for their personal financial well-being and the well-being of their family,” CySEC Chairman George Theocharides said.

“It is an issue that has been raised repeatedly by the supervisory authorities worldwide and which needs to be addressed as soon as possible also in Cyprus,” Theocharides added.

The commission, in collaboration with other organisations participating in the event, introduced a series of actions to inform and raise public awareness about the importance of financial education.

Among other actions taken, the commission also issued two succinct investor guides featuring easy-to-use and practical advice on investments, which were also published on CySEC’s website under the financial education section.

Moreover, during the week-long global event, CySEC also announced a new initiative to promote financial education in Cyprus.

This involves the launch of an annual award for a student studying economics at a Cypriot university.

For the academic year 2021-2022, CySEC will present the award to a student at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Cyprus with the best postgraduate thesis in the areas of Finance, Monetary Economics, and Capital Markets.

“CySEC’s ultimate goal is to encourage students to choose to study and research issues across the spectrum of all areas related to the responsibilities, the powers, and the sector CySEC supervises, with all the positive consequences of academic research in increasing and disseminating knowledge,” the commission said.

The commission also said that beyond the Global Money Week campaign, its objective of promoting financial literacy will also be supported through its participation in an ad-hoc committee created to formulate a national strategy that promotes financial literacy
and financial education in Cyprus.

The initiative is spearheaded and organised by the Central Bank of Cyprus, with CBC executives also participating in the committee, while other public bodies are also taking part in it, including the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the University of Cyprus and the Cyprus University of Technology.

CySEC said that the committee’s key objective is to tackle the issue of financial illiteracy in Cyprus, which has been identified as an issue that needs to be addressed.