Global – HSBC Financial Literacy Programme

Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE), an international not-for-profit organisation, works with business and higher education to mobilise student teams on university campuses around the world. The teams are challenged to develop outreach projects that create real economic opportunities for members of their communities. In 2007, the HSBC Global Education Trust and HSBC Holdings plc announced the renewal of the HSBC Financial Literacy Programme with SIFE, which previously ran from 2005-2007. The programme will now run until end 2010, with funding of around US$2.5 million, and will promote financial literacy in some 24 countries where SIFE and HSBC both have a presence.

University students involved with SIFE implement projects that they believe will help fellow students or people in their community to increase their competence and confidence with financial issues. Those in eligible countries may apply to SIFE for grants from the HSBC Financial Literacy Programme. Almost 10,000 students have been involved in more than 1,200 financial literacy grant projects in 29 countries since the programme's launch in March 2005, reaching some 415,000 people through seminars and face-to-face meetings.

HSBC employees get involved with SIFE in two ways: by volunteering as a business adviser to a SIFE team or by judging at SIFE National Competitions. Each country involved has an HSBC country co-ordinator to manage this engagement and around 400 HSBC staff have been involved since 2005.

Projects have a beneficial impact on the community and give students the chance to learn about project management and the challenge of running a business. To encourage this learning process and reward the hard work of the students, there are annual national competitions to judge the projects, with national champions going on to represent their country at the annual SIFE World Cup.

SIFE World Cup 2007

SIFE students from 44 countries competed at the SIFE World Cup in New York in October. Around 2,200 people from more than 50 countries attended the competition, with business executives, including company chief executives, judging the competition.

La Sierra University – USA

La Sierra University from California, USA was named the 2007 SIFE World Cup champion. The SIFE team at La Sierra has partnered with a family service organisation for the past eight years and helped train more than 700 people in how to open a child-care business in their home. The team educated participants on financial literacy and operating a home-based business. Already, 35% of the participants have opened their own business.

Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, was named runner-up and other finalists were the University of Tirana from Albania and Obafemi Awolowo University from Nigeria.

HSBC Financial Literacy Forum 2007

Almost 100 university/college student leaders from 27 countries attended the HSBC Financial Literacy Forum in New York held shortly before the SIFE World Cup. Delegates were chosen from more than 300 SIFE teams. The event focussed on building and sharing a better understanding of the 'what' and 'how' of financial literacy.

Key criteria for selecting students were:

• the impact their projects had in their local communities to improve financial literacy;
• the challenging and innovative nature of their projects;
• the degree to which they created knowledge that was suitable for sharing internationally.

To read about two students' experiences at the HSBC Financial Literacy Forum click here.

2006 SIFE World Cup