Zenith Bank Plc has launched a campaign aimed at inculcating a savings culture and general financial literacy among secondary schools students in the country.
The bank said the move followed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s drive for financial inclusion in Nigeria.
A statement by the bank said it organised a one-day training programme for students of Girls’ Secondary School, Abayi, Aba, Abia State, where over 300 students of the school were groomed on the need to develop the healthy habit of managing money.
The Chief Executive Officer, Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, said the programme had become imperative judging from the fact that over 43.6 per cent of adult Nigerians do not transact business in banks; a figure he said, would become worse if youths were added to the already frightening figure.
Emefiele, who was represented by the General Manager in charge of Owerri Zone, Austin Njoko, told the students that acquiring sound financial literacy skills was key to success in life as managing one’s resources prudently is one decision the individual has to make throughout his/her lifetime.
He said whether one becomes rich or poor in life does not necessarily depend on how much money one makes through life but how well he is able to manage it effectively and efficiently; adding that instances abound where people make good money but die wretched simply as a result of mismanaging his fortune.
As a way of letting his audience know how far it had been with man and money, the GMD informed that money was first introduced and minted about 2,500 years while paper money came into being about 1, 000 years ago in China.
He charged the students not to in future form the habit of carrying cash around because of the inherent danger which he said was the reason government through the CBN came up with the idea of a ‘cashless’ society and the introduction of internet banking.
