Crystal Fund launched a financial literacy initiative to protect the rights of financial sector customers and to promote their financial wellbeing in Georgia. Since 2010, Crystal Fund has successfully implemented various large-scale initiatives and donor-funded projects to raise the level of financial literacy and financial inclusion of the Georgian population:
The project – Reaching Georgia’s Rural Poor through Mobile Remittances was implemented by Crystal Fund in cooperation with JSC MFO Crystal and JSC Mobile Finance Eurasia in 2010-2013, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The Project was aimed at enhancing the self- reliance of poor rural households through improved financial literacy and access to financial services (Total budget: 321,000 USD). The following key results were achieved: regulatory due diligence was conducted; a new Law on Payment Systems was accelerated; a technology solution for mobile finance platforms was identified in the course of international tender; IT infrastructure was designed and put in place; Financial literacy module was elaborated, and so on.
In 2014, the financial literacy guide – Financial Education for All – was developed and published; private and civic actors were mobilized and a discussion platform for financial literacy was created, which culminated in the Coalition for Financial Literacy set up in October, 2015 by fifteen organizations led by the Chairman of Crystal Fund. As a result, in 2016 with efforts made by the Coalition, the National Bank of Georgia developed and approved the National Strategy for Financial Education in Georgia to support financial stability and citizens’ financial wellbeing in Georgia.
Since March 2017 Crystal Fund has been a member of the Financial Literacy Strategy Steering Committee and in coordination with the National Bank of Georgia has been carrying out strategy development and implementation, as well as financial education activities in Georgia for various target groups in all strategic areas, particularly:
Among such activities is Zhirafi Zhoze’s (Giraffe Joze) educational animated cartoon on savings for kids aged 2-6, created in cooperation with NBG, JSC MFO Crystal and Studio Velocipede – a Georgian startup, working on creating Georgian-language educational-informative cartoons, supported by the YES-Georgia Program. This helps Georgian parents to have Georgian alternatives of animations for the development and education of their kids. Giraffe Joze is a friend of children and their friendly guide in their development and educational journey. The episode on savings is dedicated to giving new knowledge to children on a topic in an engaging, funny and interesting way. It also helps the development of a child’s emotional intelligence. The popularity and the need of such cartoons had been well proven by the numbers of views in a short period of time: the cartoon on savings had quickly become a popular educational source for children, with more than 350k views on YouTube in one month.
