About 700 high school students, university mentors and teachers taking part

Financial literacy module to launch at Indonesian government event next month

University student mentors pose for a photo after completing a capacity-building session during the second financial instructor training held in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, in September. [Hanwha Life Insurance]
University student mentors pose for a photo after completing a capacity-building session during the second financial instructor training held in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, in September. [Hanwha Life Insurance]

Hanwha Life Insurance is expanding its youth financial education program — built up over years of domestic experience — to Indonesia, aiming to improve financial literacy among local young people increasingly exposed to online fraud and illegal lending as digital finance spreads.

The company announced Tuesday that it has partnered with international NGO Save the Children to launch a youth financial education ecosystem-building project in Bandung, West Java.

Rather than one-off lectures, the project brings together young students, university mentors and teachers. Ten financially gifted high school students selected from each participating school lead peer-to-peer education sessions, supported by a team of mentors from Bandung Institute of Technology and local teachers. The structure is designed to ensure the program continues under its own momentum after the project formally ends.

The project, which launched in June, currently involves about 700 participants, including 600 youths as well as university students and teachers. Hanwha Life will unveil a financial literacy education module — available for anyone to use — at BFN Fest, an official Indonesian government event, next month. In January, the company plans to invite 20 outstanding student participants to Korea for a training program.

Hanwha Life has operated its "Hanwha Life Economics Classroom" since 2015 through the Financial Supervisory Service's one-company-one-school financial education initiative. Over the past 12 years, 117,652 students at 1,002 schools nationwide have gone through the program. Last year, the company also trained financial mentors in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to educate financially vulnerable groups including youth and women. Indonesia marks its second overseas financial education initiative.

"Drawing on our long track record in financial education at home, we will support Indonesian youth in building sound financial knowledge and the capacity for economic independence," a Hanwha Life official said. "We will work with local government and educational institutions to take root as a sustainable financial education model."

Meanwhile, Indonesia is a key overseas hub for Hanwha Life. The company established a local subsidiary there in 2013, becoming the first Korean life insurer to do so, and last June became the first Korean insurer to enter the banking sector by acquiring a 40 percent stake in local Nobu Bank.


won@heraldcorp.com