Maybank honours Asean financial literacy champs

Good job: Maybank chief sustainability officer Shahril Azuar Jimi (far left), Cambodia Special Mission Senior Minister Dr Sok Siphana (second left) and Zamzamzairani (far right) posing for a photo with Nur Hana Zahra from SK Puncak Alam 2, Selangor, (third left) and the other four Best Student award winners.

FIVE students from the Asean region were recognised at the 2nd Maybank Regional Financial Education Excellence (Regional FinEx) Awards 2023 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, recently.

During the event, a total of 20 awards were presented in the Best School, Best Educator, Best Student and Best Family categories to participants from Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, a press release dated Dec 12 read.

The winners from Malaysia were Nurul Asyiqin Md Isa (Best Educator), SK Lavender Heights, Negri Sembilan (Best School) and Nur Hana Zahra Mohd Norazmi (Best Student).

The Best Family Award, which was presented to the family of Sarah Bakhtiar, was given in recognition of their strong willingness, deep commitment and firm resolve to improve their financial standing and resilience.

In his opening remarks at the regional awards ceremony, Maybank Group and Maybank Foundation chairman Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said the bank, through the foundation’s efforts, is expanding to new geographies and reaching wider beneficiaries around the region by focusing on long-lasting impact and sustainable programmes in the areas of community empowerment, education and environmental diversity.

Since 2013, through the award-winning Cashville Kidz (CVK) financial literacy programme, Maybank and Maybank Foundation have championed the cause of raising the levels of financial literacy among youths across Asean.

Developed in partnership with financial literacy education organisation MoneyTree Asia Pacific, Maybank’s CVK aims to address the need for financial education in schools across Asean by educating schoolchildren between the ages of nine and 12 via an animated series.Maybank Cambodia chief executive officer Rath Sophoan said the programme combines the elements of fun and learning, making it even more exciting and easier for the children to become financially savvy.

The content of CVK, he said, is customised to meet the local country’s lingo and culture, as well as keeping up with the latest digital trends.

To date, the CVK programme has impacted more than 330,000 schoolchildren and trained 5,270 teachers in over 1,270 schools in the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.

In his congratulatory note, National Bank of Cambodia deputy governor Yim Leat thanked Maybank Group and Maybank Foundation for choosing Cambodia as the first country in the region, outside Malaysia, to launch the CVK programme.