Financial education deemed key to counter crisis impact

As threats of a looming global economic recession now comes close to reality, an international marketing company believes that financial education for all is the key to counter these threats.

International Marketing Group (IMG), a marketing company dedicated to serving the financial needs of individuals believes that financial education will offset the fears brought about by the ongoing financial crisis.

IMG president and CEO Jose Enrique R. de Las Peñas underscored the huge significance of financial education most especially in today's global economic volatility when everyone is in fear of the negative prospects of the future.

"What people need right now in these times of financial turbulence is financial education. They have to increase their financial knowledge so that they will not be affected so much by fear of the uncertainty," said de Las Peñas.

He stressed that it is a misconception that financial education should only be limited to the elite or the well-educated.

"Everyone of us has their equal rights to be wealthy. Without proper financial education one will commit a lot of mistakes in his or her life. The lack of education is keeping some of us unequipped to the possible effects of the crisis," he added.

He said that their seminars and their membership is not only limited to the upper class segment of the population, in fact they have a mixed group of individuals from doctors, engineers, teachers, to regular employees in their membership base.

De Las Peñas said that after the issues about the current financial crisis broke, they have noted a significant increase of their business, which shows that people now start to look for better financial guidance.

He said that at the height of today's financial crisis, many companies from industries such as IT, electronics and education have sought their financial guidance.

 “A lot of businesses are already facing fears and signs that their companies might not survive the crisis. They ask our help to educate them and help them build their financial foundation,” said De Las Peñas.

IMG CEO Noel A. Arandilla on the other hand said that in the conference, most noted that there is no reason to fear even amidst this current global crisis.

"Fear of the uncertainty of the economy could be battled through financial education. With this, you can take positive, proactive and informative actions and will not be in a panic mode wherein you cannot do right decisions," he added.

Arandilla also underscored the value of saving as an effective way to assure one's future especially in today’s crisis.

"You have to make sure that you have plans on how you save your money because there are people who have plans to get your money. There has to be a long term perspective of saving. We want to build a new industry here in the Philippines. We want to help Filipinos become more aware of financial education so that they can weather whatever problems that will occur,” he said.

International Marketing Group is an affiliate of the World Finance Group and currently, they have around 30,000 members.

It is one of the biggest and fastest growing financial distribution companies in the US, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines and going worldwide and it had established agreements with many of the world’s leading financial services companies to a broad array of financial products & services.