New Zealand: A Model For A National Financial Literacy Strategy?

Great column written by Annamaria Lusardi in International Business Times, "How To Build A Successful Website for Financial Literacy."  While attending a financial literacy conference, she was surprised to hear the New Zealand Retirement Commissioner brag that she has the best website in the world to promote financial literacy and financial education.  With a "Report on Federal Financial and Economic Literacy Education Programs" expected in the U.S. in early 2010 and the investment of millions of dollars in financial literacy programs at the state-wide level expected as part of the innovation fund in SAFRA, one might hope that government officials look beyond our borders for models also. 

Here are some details about the website:

• Website:  Sorted: Your Independent Money Guide 
  • "Sorted is a term that New Zealanders use to mean having things figured out and being prepared."

• The website is organized along two dimensions:
  • By topic:
    • Setting goals
    • Budgeting
    • Everyday money
    • Saving
    • KiwiSaver
    • Managing debt
    • Mortgages
    • Investing
    • Retirement
    • Trusts
    • Fees
    • Asset protection
  • By life stage:
    • Kids and Money
    • Students
    • At Work
    • 60plus

• It provides a whole host of calculators, 38 by my count.  Here were a few of my favorites:
  • The Spendometer
    
    • Shows the impact of how you pay for an item can affect the cost
  • Money Personality Profiler
    
    • Includes the killer question, "Are you often forgetting where you put your wallet?"
  • Student budget calculator
    
    • Has 31 line items including "The Big Shop/supermarket"
  • Money Island, a game for kids
    
    • Wondering if these games are engaging? Here are a few comments (as posted):
      • "This website is totally awesome.  it has helped education so much and now my parents don't care if i go on the computer for so long cause they know it's helping me in my maths which i used to suck at. THIS WEBSITE ROX."
      • "these are the best math games in the whole entire world.I hope there will be more fun games to play in the future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

• Allows users to create a plan "My Plan" which they can return to and update often

• Interested in videos; they provide a bunch including:
  • Introduction to Sorted
  • Managing Debt
  • Setting Goals and Budgeting

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OK, as you can probably tell at this point, I am a bit enamored of this site (why else would I be still typing at 11:54pm?)

Here is what Kiwis think about this site and some lessons that can be learned from its success:

"According to a survey that was released last June, one-third of New Zealanders had either visited Sorted.org or read one of its booklets, and a quarter had done so within the past twelve months  This is an extraordinary result. There are several reasons for this success. First, the Retirement Commission is an autonomous entity with the mission to "educate and inform New Zealanders from age 5 to 105 about managing their personal finances to ensure adequate provision for retirement." Thus, the citizens of New Zealand know where to go to get a reliable source of information for retirement planning. We do not need many sources, we only need one! And both the website and the work of the Retirement Commission are well advertised in the media, so New Zealanders know about it. Most importantly, as the Retirement Commissioner remarked, it is a first-rate website!
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One final thought (or more accurately two questions): 

• With the government about to spend millions (and perhaps even billions) on financial literacy programs, including money for online programs, are we better off with a "cradle to grave model" rather than just focusing on financial literacy for the college population?
• Are we better off a larger investment in a centralized model like New Zealand rather than funding a disparate set of smaller investments at the state-wide level? 
  
  • Yes, I can anticipate the argument that NZ is relatively homogeneous with a much smaller population than the US to which I would counter with the fact that there are some basic financial literacy "truths" that don't differ much by state of the union or by country for that matter (just look at the list of topics above for evidence of that, although I have to admit I don't know much about KiwiSaver plans). 

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I just sent NZ an email this evening to find out who designed the site and what it cost to develop and maintain.  Answer forthcoming...