Student Voices: What is financial capability?
In 2021, JA Worldwide piloted a new financial education initiative, JA Building a Financially Capable Generation. We asked young people about their experience of learning how to manage their money.
What does financial capability mean to you?
Curtis, Student, JAYE Malta: What I understood from it is being financially capable means being able to afford the things you want, making a budget plan, and controlling your money. Because many people have limited amounts of assets and liabilities. And that's currently a very big problem due to the pandemic.
Muhammad, Student, JA Malaysia: define financial capability as the knowledge of how to manage your money properly.
Leslie, Student, JA Mexico: I define it as the skill of knowing how to manage and save money, especially for special events or things that are very important, such as food or clothing.
What has the JA & HSBC Financial Capability App taught you about being financially responsible?
Muhammad, Student, JA Malaysia: It teaches us how to plan, how to save my money wisely, and the risks of taking a loan—both the positive and negative sides of borrowing money.
The project has been a really, really fun experience. When I first joined the competition, I didn’t know my teammates very well, because we haven't gone to school offline. So it's been a journey. In the first meeting, we didn’t know how to talk about finances properly, but the idea was very well structured. I'm surprised that I won the national competition. Even though I didn't win the international competition, it was a very, very good experience.
Leslie, Student, JA Mexico: I honestly find it quite interesting. It's not a boring app. You see, some websites are boring, or you can’t figure out how to manage the program. But this was very interesting because, if you have a budget, you can input your budget in the app and see how much you're going to spend in a day or a week on what you're going to spend it on, how much you're going to spend, and at the end how much you're going to end up with.
I actually liked everything. It was a really cool program. It was very entertaining, working with new people and on the new program. I'd like to thank you for the program and all of you for this special opportunity that you gave me.
What did you learn during your national FinCap Challenge?
Curtis, Student, JAYE Malta Foundation: It was interesting to me personally. I handled the topics of accounts and business studies. I didn't just want to learn financial literacy, I also wanted to act, because that's one of the best ways of learning. And I thought this challenge would be a very good way to do it.
Ethan, Student, JAYE Malta Foundation: I learned more about financial capability and about budgeting and setting goals. Because I have studied accounting and business, I feel I had an advantage in this challenge. In general, this was a very interesting challenge and an amazing way to end the quarter.
JAYE Malta Wins the Global FinCap Challenge
Read more about students’ learning experience and the FinCap Challenge