National Strategy for Financial Literacy
The Commission provides leadership and coordination of New Zealand’s National Strategy for Financial Literacy. The National Strategy sets the direction for improving financial literacy in New Zealand and achieving a financially literate population.
- Vision
- Mission
- Focus areas
- National Strategy for Financial Literacy
- Māori and Pacific frameworks
- The Commission's role
- Development of the National Strategy
Vision
Personal financial wellbeing for New Zealanders
Mission
New Zealanders are financially well-educated and can make informed financial decisions throughout their lives
Focus areas
The National Strategy focuses on:
- Developing quality
- Extending delivery
- Working together
- Sharing what works
National Strategy for Financial Literacy
The National Strategy sets the direction for improving financial literacy in New Zealand and establishes a high-level umbrella framework under which financial education initiatives are co-ordinated, and any gaps in coverage identified. Read the National Strategy for Financial Literacy.
Many organisations have signed up as supporters of the national strategy.
The National Strategy Action Plan is updated every six months and the National Strategy Advisory Group reports to the Minister of Finance every six months.
Find out about progress on the National Strategy in annual reports, action plan updates and six-monthly reports to the Minister.
Māori and Pacific frameworks
The Māori framework sets the direction for improving financial literacy of Māori while the Pacific framework sets the direction for improving financial literacy of Pacific people in New Zealand.
For details, see Māori framework and Pacific framework.
The Commission's role
The Commission's work contributes to the National Strategy's four focus areas:
- Developing quality through our research, evaluation and frameworks to inform good practice in financial education
- Extending delivery through our free, independent and impartial financial information and resources
- Working together through our leadership and coordination of the National Strategy for Financial Literacy
- Sharing what works through our collaboration with a network of national and international financial literacy stakeholders
Development of the National Strategy
The impetus for a national strategy to raise New Zealanders’ financial literacy arose from the inaugural Financial Literacy Symposium in Wellington in December 2006.
Within 18 months a draft national strategy had been developed, a consultation process undertaken, and New Zealand’s first National Strategy for Financial Literacy was launched in June 2008. This rapid development underlines the importance attached to the issue by the public, private and voluntary sectors.
During the financial literacy summit in 2009, Finance Minister Bill English announced that the advisory committee for the National Strategy for Financial Literacy would report to the Minister of Finance twice a year on progress in implementing the strategy, confirming that financial literacy was on the Government’s agenda.
Subsequently the Commission developed an action plan specifically for Māori, and the Pacific Island Financial Literacy and Action Plan, owned by the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, will be launched towards the end of 2012.
The New Zealand Government’s confirmed its commitment to financial literacy internationally when the finance ministers of the APEC economies adopted the Policy Statement on Financial Literacy and Education during the APEC Finance Ministers' meeting in August 2012 in Moscow.
