That is what Partners Life head of industry engagement Mark Banicevich wants — particularly getting children talking and learning about it.
This week is the Retirement Commission’s Sorted Money Week, an annual awareness campaign which has been shining the spotlight on all things money for the past decade.
This year’s focus is on giving New Zealanders the chance to ask the money questions they have been wondering about and receive personalised answers, useful tools and helpful tips.
Mr Banicevich, who also liaises with other industry entities, including the Financial Services Council (FSC), said research showed New Zealanders generally were not very financially literate.
For that reason, he was hoping the Why Does Money Matter? video competition for school pupils — being held throughout New Zealand for the second consecutive year — would get good support.
Last year’s winner was Southland’s Woodlands Primary School, which was a "standout".
Room Pukeko’s pupils used their worm farm project as an example in their entry.
The bar had been set and the biggest challenge now was getting the word out and motivating teachers to get involved, Mr Banicevich said.
With $10,000 worth of prizes on offer, it is part of Money and You, an online resource — and initiative of the FSC — aiming to improve New Zealanders’ financial confidence and wellbeing.
The theme for this year’s video competition is "good money habits".
Mr Banicevich said it was hoped that would spark a conversation about money in classrooms and also among families.
While he could understand why many parents would not sit down with their children and discuss their mortgage balance, saying it could be a confronting and difficult topic, it was important to "make it OK".
Another problem was a falling numeracy standard, which was scary when it came to financial literacy, he said.
Covid-19 had probably made more people aware of their financial situations, and higher inflation was causing more financial hardship, leading to people being more concerned about money.
That did not necessarily lead to them having the right tools for financial wellbeing.
While the industry could try to do that by engaging with adults, he believed it was more effective to focus on children.
Having the Sorted programme now in 75% of secondary schools was a "fantastic achievement", while the likes of financial education platform Banqer were also great.
Another challenge was that while technology had made so many things easier, cash was rarely used these days. Children used to learn about money "playing shop" but now it was in a virtual, non-tangible context.
It was also important to "make it OK to be wrong"; for some teachers and parents, their own financial literacy was not very high.
In some cases, the children could have the opportunity to educate the adults.
Mr Banicevich would like to see banks work together on big issues such as financial capability. He was optimistic that, over the next few years, more would be done within the industry to co-operate.
Competition details can be found on whydoesmoneymatter.co.nz.
