Guy Stuart, Executive Director of MFO, joined Professor Annamaria Lusardi of George Washington University and Graham McMillan of the Citi Foundation for the International Keynote Session at the start of the Citi-FT Financial Education Summit in December 2013.
When asked to build on the remarks of Professor Lusardi about trends in financial education and how they might result in the scaling up of financial education programs, Guy noted that financial education in schools was a cost-effective way to scale financial education for children, so long as there was proper attention paid to the content and teaching of the curriculum.
Guy noted that there were two mechanisms by which to reach youth and adults that are growing in importance: financial service providers recognizing the business value of financial education and embedding it into their on-going service delivery systems; and regulators actively implementing consumer protection regulations that included the provision of financial education, supporting private sector efforts to provide financial education.
On the second day of the Citi-FT Financial Education Summit, Guy Stuart, Executive Director of MFO, joined Chetna Gala Sinha of Mann Deshi Mahila Bank and Graham McMillan of the Citi Foundation for a Concurrent Panel Session on Business Models for Financial Education.
Guy was asked to make some remarks about new business models for financial education. He described MFO’s new approach to generating revenue through its technical assistance activities using pay-for-performance contracts. Under such a contract MFO would have an agreement with a financial service provider (FSP) on metrics that would trigger payments to MFO for work that it had performed for the FSP, so the FSP would pay MFO for results, not just on a consulting fee basis. He and Ms. Gala Sinha then shared information about the project MFO and Mann Deshi Mahila Bank are undertaking under a pay-for-performance contract.
Guy Stuart’s presence at the Citi-FT Financial Education Summit was supported by funds from the Citi Foundation.
