Over 30 educational events devoted to financial literacy will be held within the Informative Days agenda of the National Bank of Ukraine (the NBU) Economic Express regional project launched today in Lviv. The agenda promises to be exciting: even more attendees, lecturers, and partner organizations are expected to join compared to the first session held in Zhytomyr in February and March this year. As before, the main partners of the events are the USAID Financial Sector Transformation Project and Kyiv School of Economics.
For the NBU, one of the key events of the Economic Express agenda is the meeting with the business community to be attended by the NBU Deputy Governor Dmytro Sologub.
“These meetings is the key to understanding the NBU’s actions by the regional economic agents. Information on the most recent regulatory changes in the financial markets is often scarce. Our regular meetings with the business community are aimed at mitigating this gap,” said Dmytro Sologub.
Two lectures are specifically planned for students and lecturers of Lviv economic universities. Facebook registration for the events is free of charge. One of the most interesting topics of the lectures is devoted to the premier presentation of findings of the all-Ukrainian survey on the financial literacy and inclusion held by the USAID project experts.
Some lectures within the Economic Express agenda will be held at the following higher educational establishments:
- Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
- Lviv Polytechnic National University
- Banking University of Lviv
- Ukrainian Catholic University.
Among other things, the Lviv agenda offers the Vox-Check joint training for journalists on economic data verification.
“Regional informative visits were first held in 2015. Today, in cooperation with our partners, we develop a system for such communications,” Dmytro Sologub commented on launching the Economic Express in Lviv.
“We know from our experience that today, even when online communications, social networks, and messengers prevail, it is essential to go and talk personally to those who are of the highest priority for us: the youth, university professors, journalists, and business representatives. It is of high importance and helps with better understanding of the regulator’s actions,” he concluded.
“We at the USAID Financial Sector Transformation Project are happy to participate in the NBU Informative Days in Lviv,” said Robert Bond, manager of the project.
“We appreciate this opportunity to present findings of the survey on financial literacy and consumer rights protection,” he mentioned.
“The project has a long history of cooperation with the NBU in many areas. It is a great honor for us to support the Economic Express project. We truly believe that financial literacy directly impacts the well-being of citizens and the economic growth. The Kyiv School of Economics lecturers are happy to join the lectures and visit the universities. We are of the opinion that it is the educational environment that can generate significant changes in the country,” said Volodymyr Vakhitov, professor of the Kyiv School of Economics, one of the lecturers engaged in the Lviv project.
To start the talks on the Economic Express events in social media use the hashtag #NBUexpress. We encourage attendees of the project to share their thoughts on the events visited.
For reference
Financial Awareness Days is a joint educational project implemented by the NBU in conjunction with the USAID within the framework of the USAID Financial Sector Transformation Project and with the support of Visa international payment system.
The project was implemented in 2017–2018 in partnership with the State Higher Educational Institution Banking University, the Deposit Guarantee Fund, and the Independent Association of the Banks of Ukraine.
The standard program of the project included the following:
- themed lectures by financial market experts
- financial awareness workshops
- interactive seminars for high-school and university students
- an exhibition of Ukrainian money and modern commemorative coins by the Money Museum of the National Bank of Ukraine.
In 2017, events within the project’s agenda were held in four cities – Odesa, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Dnipro – with nearly 7,500 attendees. In 2018, Financial Awareness Days took place in the city of Poltava, gathering close to 2,600 attendees, including college students, schoolchildren, and professors. In addition, the NBU experts visited another three oblast capitals – Odesa, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia – to deliver a series of financial lectures for college students.
Since 2019, the program is renamed into Economic Express. The first event of the updated agenda this year was held in Zhytomyr in February and March. The Economic Express events were attended by 215 students and 35 lecturers of economic departments from universities in Zhytomyr as well as by many business representatives and journalists.