At a time when many Irish households are finding managing their finances a difficulty, MakingCents.ie, a new online resource dedicated to financial literacy, has been launched with the aim of educating people on budgeting, banking jargon and dealing with debt.
A joint collaboration between the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) and EBS Building Society, MakingCents.ie is a free resource on the web for those looking to understand money, from explaining financial jargon to providing an online budget calendar.
One of the reason behind the launch of this site was the finding that there is a lack of understanding out there: research jointly commissioned by EBS and NALA found that 25pc of adults have difficulties with numeracy tasks while external research showed that 89pc of people would like financial institutions to use less “jargon” in their communications.
“For some time, we have identified the area of financial services and money management as an area of difficulty for thousands of people. However, with the support of the EBS Building Society, we are now able to start dealing with this issue in a more comprehensive way as part of a joint financial literacy programme,” said Inez Bailey, director of NALA.
“MakingCents.ie is the latest part of this programme, and we are proud that it is also the first online resource that will contain educational content that is mapped to the Financial Competency Framework, as developed by the National Steering Group on Financial Education. Importantly, each teaching module also has a browse aloud function so that it is fully accessible for people with literacy difficulties.”
Dara Deering, director of membership business at the EBS Building Society, said that MakingCents.ie is “an important tool in helping to provide easy-to-access information at a time when it is important to support people as they seek to take control of their financial well being, to establish and achieve personal financial goals and to build financial security”.
By Marie Boran
Photo: MakingCents.ie
