Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-15-Speech-2-287"
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"en.20080115.26.2-287"2
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"What we have been attempting to do here in financial education is to get this on the agenda and to make everybody aware, particularly in Member States, that it would probably be a better investment than in lots of other areas if, from a very early stage in the school curriculum, some basic financial literacy was taught.
Because, going through life, whether one ends up as the chief financial controller of a major institution or whether one has a very ordinary job in one’s local area, you are definitely going to encounter – at some stage you are going to have to deal with – some major financial transaction such as the buying of a car, a house, a washing machine or whatever.
I think that from an early stage it would be far better if people had a little bit taught to them in the school curriculum programme so that they would know some basic information.
What Ms Harkin was speaking about goes on to a higher level as to what type of information should be given to a consumer, because she is correct: the amount of information that is given to them and the 48 pages that they get to read in very small writing is there for the sole purpose, in my view (and it has always been my view), of satisfying lawyers, so that if there is a case, they can charge bigger and bigger fees for telling you that you have either won or lost. I have absolutely no faith in that at all.
Some of that particular area is directly under my own responsibility. I often recall a particular case when I was in Scotland about two years or so ago, meeting with some of the financial educators who were talking about the Perspectives Directive in the UCITS area. They said there were 81 pages in the Perspectives Directive and 78 pages in the simplified perspectives to do with a particular product. So, in the Consumer Credit Directive, which I think is being dealt with at present in Parliament, Ms Kuneva will make some improvements as to what type of basic information consumers should be given. Ms Kuneva is dealing with those particular aspects. But in the whole area of financial education, the place where I have been trying to up the agenda is for Member States to include, from an early stage, some basic financial education as part of the core curriculum programme. I think everybody would be far better off doing it like that than having pages and pages of small type that no one ever reads."@en1
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