Advocating financial knowledge and inclusion
“THE need for financial education is real. It is a topic that Bank Ne ga ra continue stop us has Malaysia has a household debt of between 84% and 86%, the highest in South-East Asia, and a lot of young graduates below the age of 35 are declared bankrupt despite having a good education.
“In addition, a lot of people are within the bottom 40% and the number of Malaysians who receive Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia every year keeps increasing,” says Eric Wong, chief customer and marketing officer at Prudential Assurance Malaysia Berhad (Prudential).
Due to this shocking statistics, Prudential sees the need to spread the knowledge of financial resilience and independence.
As a leading insurer in Asia specialising in providing protection and savings solutions, Prudential focuses on the three key pillars of financial education, financial protection as well as disaster preparedness and relief when conducting corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
Wong continues, “If we look at Malaysia, we have not come out of these issues. Bank Negara keeps repeating this message again and again, and its big theme is always around the topic of financial inclusion.
“Our response to that is through financial education and literacy. We have a role to play as it has a lot to do with our reason of existence and very much aligned with what the company does as a business.
“When we enter CSR, we have to look at pain points within communities and the areas that require help. It is about what we can do beyond insurance and not for business opportunity, revenue or profit generation.”
As such, Prudential continuously reviews its ability to contribute to society and improve on its numerous programmes for the underserved such as PRUkasih in the area of financial protection as well as Cha-Ching Live, Karnival Cha-Ching and Duit Right in the area of financial education.
“It is not about changing the programmes or the themes every year but going a little bit deeper.
The thinking is about how many more people we can reach out to and the impact we bring. We want to do more and we want more people to benefit, especially the underserved urban poor,” adds Wong.
Helping those in need
PRUkasih was launched as a free protection plan that provides temporary financial relief to registered low-income families in the event of an illness, accident or
e bread winr The allowances for up to one year as well as funeral expenses.
“This year alone, Prudential has disbursed more than RM700,000 from 512 claims and we still see many instances where families are just not financially ready,” says Nurzulfikar Ali, head of corporate responsibility at Prudential.
“They do not have a strong support system and no savings. Without PRUkasih, they will face financial vulnerability as there is no other sup r ystem available, especially ses of death.”
He shares his experience of meeting various PRUkasih claimants who, after losing their spouse and sole breadwinner of the family, are unable to pay rent, have to move out and struggle to put food on the table, let alone support their children through scho
H here is a big group of people in urban areas who are neither financially prepared nor have disposable income, particularly within the Klang Valley.
Wong adds, “When we talk about going deeper and beyond financial protection, our vision for the programme is for these families to think about how they should start preparing for unexpected incidences, rather than merely accepting events as part of an ill-fated life.”
Prudential recognises that it has its limitations as a private company when conducting large-scale CSR activities and that the only way to reach out to its targeted number of people annually is by partnering with various government agencies as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
By roping in more NGOs to join its cause – rising from four organisations last year to 11 this year – Prudential is on target to introduce PRUkasih to almost 40,000 households, in total, by January next year.
The figure doubled from 2014 to 2016 and the involvement of NGOs has not only enabled better penetration within the new communities but a continuous presence that would allow residents to register under the plan at any time.
From the 40,000 families that have access to PRUkasih, 9,245 families have signed up for it and Prudential is targeting to increase the sign-up rate to 40% next year.
Starting them young
Prudential identified among the best ways to alleviate the struggling financial situation of these families is by running education programmes in schools, delivering messages of financial literacy to children in fun and interactive methods such as music videos.
Since its introduction in 2014, the Cha-Ching programme that was initially developed by the company’s regional CSR counterpart, Prudence Foundation, has grown from what was originally a one-off classroom session for 30 primary school students to a carnival concept that can cater up to 500 students at once.
The carnival is made up of
It is a learning process and not something that is done for just one or two years. The hope is that once these children realise the importance of financial resilience, they can be better off than their parents. Eric Wong
interactive game booths and challenges that allow children to learn four main concepts: earn, save, spend and donate – in addition to the important values of hard work, never giving up and starting tasks today.
This year, Prudential received a major boost from the Education Ministry when it was given the green light to introduce Cha-Ching Curriculum programme as a school co-curricular activity.
NGOs help Prudential manage, oversee plus provide the content and material to support school teachers who are involved in the information delivery process.
“We are an insurance company with a mission to improve financial literacy levels but we are not educators. We thus leverage on the strengths of organisations that have the expertise in the education segment, such as Junior Achievement Malaysia and Yayasan Generasi Gemilang,” says Wong.
For secondary school students within the same community, they benefit from the Duit Right programme that further explores the dimensions of the earn, save, spend and donate concepts.
Wong expresses, “The Cha-Ching programme is a good example of how we have gone deeper into contributing to society.
“From an education standpoint, it is a lifelong process. If we were to only do programmes at the primary level, the message would be easily lost. What we want to do is not to cover different communities but to continue the journey in education for the long term.
“It is a learning process and not something that is done for just one or two years. The hope is that once these children realise the importance of financial resilience, they can be better off than their parents.”
Taking necessary precautions
Working in partnership with National Geographic, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Federation Internationale de l’Automobile as well as Malaysian actress Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh and Filipino boxing legend Manny Pacquiao as international brand ambassadors, the Prudence Foundation runs three main branches under the SAFE STEPS umbrella: Natural Disasters, Road Safety and First Aid.
Prudential believes people need to have a good understanding of all three aspects to be better prepared and make the best decisions when unfortunate events occur.
Road accidents have been identified as being among the highest causes of deaths globally while first aid knowledge will always come in handy if someone comes across a person who has collapsed or shows symptoms of a heart attack or has respiratory issues.
In relation to the devastating natural calamities that hit Malaysia in recent months, Wong conveys that cash funding was distributed to employees and agents as part of their contribution to the affected victims but adds there is always more that can be done.
“Most human beings who have not experienced such situations do not pay much attention to the real needs of the people, so a lot of our efforts also go into educating people on being prepared.”
He adds that among the other ways Prudential is involved is by working closely with Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat (JKM) to contribute useful items that will aid in disaster relief, such as providing 1,200 reusable relief tents that can be mobilised to JKM’s various relief centres to give evacuees a better sense of privacy.
Bringing about greater impact
Wong and Nurzulfikar reiterate that NGO collaboration is key to the smooth delivery of all its CSR efforts.
For example, one of the biggest challenges of the PRUkasih programme is gaining the trust of residents living in each community, convincing people that the company is not in for any political or hidden motives.
Painting murals within the community, sponsoring banners and building the capacity of NGOs who are frequently involved in these communities in terms of knowledge and tools are some of the ways to overcome the problem.
In some cases, Prudential has also appointed community representatives to be the middle persons between communities and the company as they have a better understanding of the needs of the people.
Nurzulfikar reveals that improvements are always necessary and changes to PRUkasih are already in the pipeline, whereby in addition to financial disbursement, the company intends to conduct a budgeting process with claimants that will give them the tools and knowledge on how to use the disbursed money to better prepare for the future.
He also believes that upon receiving such help, they will be more open to new knowledge and spread the word of the plan’s ben o residents who have not regi ed.
Based on the success of ChaChing that will be reaching 30,000 kids across 250 schools in six states next year, Prudential will also be upping the scale of its Duit Right programme and looking to reintroduce it as a curriculum by 2019.
The goal would be for both financial education programmes to reach 50,000 students every year.
Wong shares that receiving the Best Financial Education and Awareness Award by Bank Negara at Karnival Kewangan earlier this year for its school programmes encourages the company to continue striving harder in its CSR efforts.
However, he concludes that despite the company’s recognition, achievements and impact to communities, CSR activities are, in general, a team effort that requires the commitment of everyone – from company employees, government agencies and NGOs to the public.
He thus calls out to everyone to stand up and be counted, “For many parties who are involved in these areas, they find it difficult to get enough volunteers. We live in an age where people have so much going on in their lives that these topics are not naturally picked up or thought about.
“It is easy to say what we are trying to achieve but it is much more difficult to deploy. The execution would mean contributing in terms of time, resources, knowledge and funding, so hopefully, more people will join this venture.”