Save & Invest

This article provides a brief overview of the field of financial education and explores some of the challenges and potential solutions. The author describes developments in the contemporary financial education movement since the 1990s and the background economic changes that stimulated its growth; reviews currently available financial education initiatives for youth and adults and discusses the evidence about its effectiveness as well as broader challenges for the field. The article concludes by highlighting both general and specific examples of efforts to move the field forward.

This article provides a plain-language description of behavioral economics and the role of common biases in financial decisionmaking, and reviews ways in which the findings of behavioral economics can help structure financial education and public policy.

This article discusses the results of and lessons learnt from the Financial Opportunities Project (FOP), a comprehensive effort by the Center for Economic Progress identify, implement, and disseminate strategies for integrating financial services and asset-building opportunities with community-based tax-preparation services at IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites.

This article provides an overview of bank-based financial education. The role of banks more generally is reviewed, and examples of Marshall and Isley (M&I) Bank's Consumer Education (CE) program are discussed. Evaluation methods used by M&I are described. Key factors for success include clearly defined priorities, a standardized high-quality curriculum, appropriately designed delivery, well-integrated assessment and evaluation, effective community partnerships and a willingness to provide supporting tools.

This report was prepared to provide background on the “Bank On” model, a new approach for expanding access to safe, affordable financial services for unbanked households. The purpose of this report is to describe the landscape of Bank On programs, their origins, and their context within a broader financial access field. The report provides basic information about Bank On programs that currently exist, including information about program structure, partnerships, and funding as well as an assessment of successes, challenges, special considerations and gaps in the field.

The Community Financial Access Pilot (CFAP) began in 2008 and was implemented through December 2009 by the U.S.

This short article briefly summarizes and provides a link to the final report on the FDIC Survey of Bank Efforts to Serve the Unbanked and Underbanked. The survey was conducted in 2008 and the report was released in 2009. The FDIC retained Dove Consulting to help administer the survey of banks during 2008. The voluntary survey consisted of mail-in questionnaires administered to a stratified random sample of about 1,300 banks. The nationally representative sample was selected from the population of federally insured banks and thrifts with retail branch operations.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Take Charge America Institute at the University of Arizona, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis invited a small group of researchers and practitioners to discuss how to improve the evaluation and metrics of youth financial education programs. The meeting focused specifically on youth — which we defined as individuals under the age of 25 – in an effort to distinguish this effort from others that have discussed financial education research more broadly.

The Community Development Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) commissioned this study to explore the feasibility of passing a financial education mandate in California. Specifically, we sought to understand the key barriers related to passing a mandate in California and to identify strategies to implement financial education in the current environment, despite the absence of a state mandate.

This study examines the relationship between bank account ownership and student knowledge of personal finance. To assess financial knowledge, the study relies on national data collected every two years by the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Finance. Using test scores from the 2008 JumpStart survey, I assess whether scores are significantly higher among students that have bank accounts, relative to those students that have no formal banking relationship, controlling for demographic and socio-economic variables that might influence financial knowledge.