IFEC Publishes Annual Report 2018-19:
Passing On your Financial Wisdom

19 June 2019

The Investor and Financial Education Council (IFEC) today published its Annual Report 2018-19.

The report summarises the IFEC’s work in leading financial literacy in Hong Kong, and showcases the organisation’s initiatives, resources and activities throughout the year to promote widespread financial education. Themed "Passing On your Financial Wisdom", the IFEC encourages everyone to share their money values, financial management experience and know-how across generations.

"At IFEC we would like to help people develop the attitudes and habits to achieve financial security and well-being. The Chin Family is the IFEC’s consumer platform that provides the tools and resources to learn key concepts such as spending less than you earn, growing your money, saving for future spending and retirement needs, and protecting what you have. We also see the importance for family members to pass along their financial skills and learnings to one another," said Mr Lester Huang, Chairman of the IFEC.

"The IFEC and the stakeholders in the community, including the education and finance sectors and the regulatory authorities, can all play an integral role in making financial education more readily available and widely accessible."

Some key highlights of our work in the past year include:

• Introduction of The Chin Family Financially Literate Schools Programme to integrate financial concepts into curriculum teaching and other learning experiences for students at primary schools.
• Introduction of the Financial Literacy Strategy 2019 which aims to create a conducive environment for stakeholders to deliver more quality financial education initiatives.
• The annual Hong Kong Money Month campaign, organised in March 2019 with the theme Plan For Your Future: Act Now!, featured over 100 events and initiatives for students, working adults, investors, retirees and vulnerable groups.
• A second Financial Literacy Monitor study, two pieces of evaluation on programmes dedicated to students, as well as several studies on consumer behaviour were conducted in the year. As of March 2019, five projects have received a total of around HK$2 million under the IFEC research grant funding since its introduction in 2015.
• Our consumer education platform, The Chin Family, continued to record increasing numbers of website pageviews and tools download. The Chin Family also delivered a number of campaigns and events. These included the joint education campaign with the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau, the Insurance Authority and the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority on the tax deductions for qualifying deferred annuity policies and tax deductible MPF voluntary contributions, and Good Old Times, our children’s flagship money learning event. During the year, over 400 seminars and workshops were conducted for more than 30,000 participants.

Mr David Kneebone, General Manager of the IFEC said, “The last fiscal year was also a significant one for us as we renamed ourselves from the Investor Education Centre to the Investor and Financial Education Council. Our new corporate identity is intended to reflect the breadth of our role and commitment to financial education in Hong Kong.”

An online version of the annual report is available on the IFEC website at https://www.ifec.org.hk/en/.

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