Other Initiatives

Initiatives to promote financial education

CGD follows up on a number of initiatives aiming to support and promote financial education. This is one of the most important pillars of the Sustainability Strategy.

CGD takes financial literacy to Portuguese schools

During the current school year (2023/2024), Caixa Geral de Depósitos is participating in the initiative “No Banco da minha Escola”, promoted by the Portuguese Banking Association (APB), aimed at providing financial and banking knowledge to middle school and high school students.

Sessions are held face-to-face and aim at raising financial and banking literacy levels among young people.

CGD will be in charge of holding awareness-raising and information sessions for students from the following Portuguese middle schools: Escola Básica Bartolomeu Dias; Básica e Secundária de Salvaterra de Magos e Escola Profissional de Esposende. The sessions will be held in three different stages (one per term) and each will address a specific topic.

The first term will focus on Planning and Managing the Household Budget - Expenses versus Income. The second term will focus on the Financial System and Basic Financial Products and the third term will include sessions on How to Prevent Online Fraud. This initiative involves 13 districts in the north, center and south of the country, a total of 50 schools and over three thousand students.

CGD is part of the Financial Literacy working group, led by the APB, in line with its own strategy for addressing financial literacy issues.

Back in 2008, CGD launched a pioneer project for addressing and promoting this topic: the platform Saldo Positivo (‘Positive Balance’), which remains a nation-wide renowned project.

In 2022, CGD was one of the entities involved in the cycle “Everything You Need to Know About Online Banking” – learn more about it on this this page.

European Money Quiz (EMQ)

Created by the European Banking Federation (EBF), in 2018, the EMQ is a European competition aiming to promote financial literacy among young people aged 13-15, in digital format, available for computer and smartphone, to test their knowledge in areas such as savings, credit, risk, indebtedness, online security and personal finance management.

The competition takes place in two stages. Firstly, two winners per country are selected at the national finals. Then, at the European finals, where finalists from several countries shall compete face to face, in B

russels, they try to conquer the title of EMQ European champions.

The competition is accessible to all schools in the country (up to a limited number of participants). For more information, go to the Portuguese Banking Association (APB)’s website.

2023 Edition

Portugal won the 3rd place in the largest European financial literacy competition. The students Francisco, 13, and José Silva, 14, from Sobreira High School, in Paredes, were in Brussels to represent Portugal in the European finals of the European Money Quiz and brought home the 3rd place in the largest European competition of financial literacy, collecting a 1,000€ prize to invest in a school project.

Besides the unforgettable experience of traveling to Brussels and meeting students from 28 countries, the two Portuguese students had an unprecedented victory: in the six years of existence of the European Money Quiz, Portugal had never made the top-ranked countries.

Held online since 2020 due to the pandemic, the European finals went back to its face-to-face format this year, in Brussels, in an event attended by 135 people, including students, teachers and coordinators from European banking associations.

Poland made 2nd place in the competition and Greece won 1st place. The 6th edition of the EMQ was played by 37 thousand students, at a European level, and by 3 thousand students nation-wide.

2022 Edition

The grand champions of the European Money Quiz (EMQ) were Norway, Italy and Ireland. They were followed by Serbia and Malta in 4th and 5th place, respectively.

The EMQ22 European Final took place on 10 May and brought together finalists from 29 European countries. Representing Portugal were Matilde Soares and Leandro Fernandes, from the Joaquim Inácio Cruz Sobral School Group, in Sobral de Monte Agraço, who were the winners of the national edition, played by about 2500 students from 50 schools from all over the country. This year, the students had to answer 20 questions aligned with the OECD/INFE guidelines for strengthening financial skills. Among the topics at stake were sustainability, online fraud, budget management, and crypto-assets.

All over Europe, over 50,000 students aged 13 to 15 played the 6th edition of the EMQ.

2021 Edition

The winners of the National Finals of the 2021 Edition of the European Money Quiz were Álvaro Vieira de Castro, from the Júlio Brandão Middle School, in Vila Nova de Famalicão, and Lucas Lagarto, a student from the D. Duarte Middle School, in Viseu. The two winners of the national finals will now represent Portugal at the European Finals, scheduled for 20 April, and compete with the best champions out of 25 countries. The cash prize will be allocated to the school represented by the winning students.

The first round of the quiz gathered over 2,000 middle school (3rd cycle) students, from 40 nation-wide schools and the two best competitors of each school were selected to go to the National Finals.

Due to the events imposed upon us due to the current pandemic context, the national finals of the quiz were broadcast online, via APB’s Youtube Channel, and was watched live by over 250 people, most of them students and teachers who are learning and teaching from home.

2020 Edition

The initiative, which was open to all schools in the country, was embraced by 50 schools and over 2,000 students participated and played the quiz via the Kahoot! app.

Davide Casimiro, from the Sertã School Group, and Rodrigo Medina, from the João Villaret School Group, in Loures, were the winners of the National Finals which took place from 18-22 May.

The EMQ edition was played by over 500,000 students in 28 European countries, a higher number as compared to when the game was created in 2018.

2019 Edition

The European Money Quiz was played by over 100,000 students from all over Europe, in 28 countries and 2,000 schools.

The team from Colégio Vasco da Gama, in Meleças- Belas (Lisbon district), represented Portugal in the European Finals, in Brussels. Slovenia was the European winner and Portugal was the country with the most students playing Money Quiz - 3,000 students from 60 schools. The Portuguese Banking Association received the award "Best use of EMQ 2019".

The European Money Quiz is held in Portugal under the mentorship of the Portuguese Banking Association (APB) in partnership with national banks. CGD is part of APB’s Financial Education and Literacy Working Group, promoting these initiatives in order to educate the younger population on finance-related matters.

European Money Week

Launched by the European Banking Federation (EBF), the European Money Week is an initiative aimed at promoting Financial Literacy which takes place every year in March and in which over 20 European countries participate.

During that week, the Banking associations from the various countries involved carry out a number of activities aimed at promoting financial literacy addressed to several audiences, namely children, young people and entrepreneurs.

This project mainly aims to promote the importance of a better, more encompassing financial literacy in Portugal and in Europe, raising the community’s awareness of the importance of adopting a suitable behavior in present and future financial choices.

Get to know the activities throughout the several editions of the European Money Week (EMW).

Financial Training Week

This initiative aims to raise the population’s awareness to the importance of financial training and is celebrated every year on the World Savings Day (31 October). During the celebration of the Financial Training Week all the partners of the National Financial Training Plan participate and initiatives are addressed to different target audiences, namely students of all ages, teachers and other educators, managers of micro and small enterprises, football players, psychologists, seniors, vulnerable groups and the general public.

The celebrations began in 2012, with the Financial Training Day, but, as of 2017, the event was extended to a week, in order to include the ever-increasing number of partners in the Plan and to ensure a wider coverage of the different target audiences.

Learn about the initiatives already carried out by the APB over the various editions of the Financial Training Week.

The Financial Training Day was created by the National Financial Training Plan, an initiative of the National Council of Financial Supervisors (Bank of Portugal, CMVM and ASF) that aims to increase the population’s financial literacy levels.

World Investor Week

Since 2018, the Portuguese Banking Association (APB) promotes the “Banking Open Day”, together with its associated banks. This initiative takes place as part of the celebrations of the World Investor Week, which in Portugal is organized by the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM). On this day, Banks open their doors and hold information sessions on basic investment concepts and notionsaiming to raise awareness to the importance of financial education and investor protection.

Digital Literacy Program

Everything you need to know about online banking

As part of the Financial and Digital Literacy program, the Portuguese Banking Association (APB), in partnership with Portuguese Banks, launched the digital literacy program - "Everything you need to know about online banking" - aimed primarily at senior citizens who are not yet familiar with the use of digital banking.

The goal of this program is to convey a set of basic notions that will allow them to perform some of the essential day-to-day banking operations through online channels, such as making transfers, payments, learning how to check one's bank account via computer or cell phone, being alert and knowing how to protect oneself from possible fraud attempts, among others.

The free information sessions, open to the general public, took place monthly and were promoted by representatives of the APB member banks, in an online format.

This initiative intended to promote a set of basic digital skills from the user's point of view, contribute to the training of the target population in the use of digital channels, raise awareness of the importance of adopting more informed and safer financial behaviors and contribute to increasing the levels of digital and financial literacy in Portugal.

Click the links below to watch the videos on the various topics covered in the sessions already held:
Session 1 - "How to access my bank online?"
Session 2 - "What transactions can I make via online banking?"
Session 3 - "How to check my account online?"
Session 4 - "How to make an online transfer?"
Session 5 - "How to make payments to the state, pay for services and top up credit online?"
Session 6 - "How to make payments by card online?"
Session 7 - "How to use solutions like MB Way?"
Session 7 - "How to use solutions like MB Net?"
Session 8 - "How to build up savings online?"
Session 9 - "How to ask for loans online?"
Session 10 - "How to open an online account?"
Session 11 - "What types of fraud should I look out for when using online banking?"
Session 12 - "What precautions should I take when using online banking?"

These initiatives are the responsibility of APB and are organized by a Working Group on Financial Literacy, composed of several of APB’s associate banks.

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