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.

European Money Quiz (EMQ)

Created by the European Banking Federation (EBF), in 2018, the EMQ is a European competition aiming to promote financial literacy addressed at young people with 13-15 years, in digital form, available for computer and smartphone, to test their knowledge in areas such as savings, credit, risk, leveraging, 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 Brussels, they try to conquer the title of EMQ European champions.

The national finals took place in March – in the week of the celebration of the European Money Week – and the European finals are scheduled for April, in Brussels.

The competition is accessible to all school in the country (limited to the number of available places). For more information, go to the Portuguese Banking Association (APB)’s website.

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 the National Finals.

Due to the events imposed upon us due to the current pandemic context, the national finals of the quiz were broadcasted 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.

In 2020, 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.

In 2019, 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 for the importance of adopting a suitable behavior in present and future financial choices.

Financial Training Week

This initiative aims to raise the population’s awareness to the importance of financial training and takes place 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.

In 2019, one hundred and fifty students from Emídio Garcia High School, in Bragança, played Money Quiz, testing their financial literacy knowledge by answering questions about savings, leveraging, online security, inter alia. This initiative was deployed by the Portuguese Banking Association (APB) as part of the celebrations of the Financial Training Day, 28 October.

Throughout the day, the financial supervisors and partners of the National Financial Training Plan provided financial training workshops at the school. Through games and fun activities, the students debated financial topics, such as managing the household budget, the importance of saving and managing savings, the best ways to prevent risk, and the functioning of the financial system.

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 Work Investor Week, which in Portugal is organized by the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM), aiming to raise awareness to the importance of financial education and investor protection.

2020 Banking Open Day

On this year’s edition, marked by the current pandemic context, approximately 1,500 people attended the 2020 Banking Open Day, in which relevant subjects were addressed, such as the importance of Investment for retirement, the different financial products and the investment alternatives available in the market according to the profile of each investor.

Eleven banks associated to the APB participated in this initiative and three clarification sessions were held on the subject “Trust to Invest”.

2019 Innovation Challenge

The Portuguese Banking Association (APB), in partnership with Junior Achievement Portugal (JAP), organized the 2019 Innovation Challenge. This initiative consisted of the creation of innovative projects/solutions for the banking activity by 50 students divided into 9 teams, coming from several higher education institutions of the Lisbon region.

From the nine presented projects, three stood out and made the podium:

1st place - "Swipecard": a virtual card for young people to safely shop and process payments exclusively on social networks.
2nd place - "Trivago da Banca" (“Banking Trivago”): an app allowing to compare the costs of loans to customers in several banks and chose the most favorable option according to the criteria set by the user.
3rd place - "Eazyway" App: an “information aggregator” specifically designed for young people, allowing them to access a chart in their cellphones with all monthly expenses, creating limits for those expenses, create a piggy bank and receive notifications when the maximum amount is exceeded.

The Innovation Challenge took place on 21 November, at the Ismaili Center in Lisbon, and the panel of judges was composed of APB’s Secretary-General and the managers from the Digital Banking and Marketing areas of Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Crédito Agrícola and Millennium BCP. The initiative was also supported by volunteers from APB’s Financial Education Working Group.

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