Banks in schools

Moral panic alert. Banks are about to be let loose into the nation's schools to peddle their wares to innocent school students. Or to deliver some financial education, which some argue amounts to the same thing.

The Financial Times, which triggered this alarm, kicked off its story saying "High street banks responsible for some of the worst consumer mis-selling scandals of the past decade will be invited into British schools to help teach financial education..."

This ungenerous description of some of our finest financial institutions was mild compared with the response from part of the financial education sector. "WTF?", spluttered Vivi Friedgut of Blackbullion, a company specialising in financial education. She likened it to providing free gin at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. She'd prefer banks to contribute to a fund "to pay passionate, knowledgeable financial educators to deliver engaging dynamic and effective financial education programs to students." Hint: she may be thinking about herself there.

Of course, there's a long tradition of educators working with banks to provide financial education. The Personal Finance Education Group charity is pretty relaxed. It draws the line at promoting financial products but allows brand names to be displayed on schools materials. This is handy, as donations and grants from those brands keep Pfeg going.
 
Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com and financial education campaigner, is also cool about banks in schools. He was quoted by the FT: “I’d like to see teachers introduce bank staff and say to children: ’Their job is to sell you products and make a profit. Now what would you like to ask them?’”

Vivi Friedgut's question in response might be, why don't you shut the door on your way out you bunch of PPI-mis-selling, Libor rate-manipulating, money-laundering evil-doers?

My question would be something like, since you've bothered to come into this school do you think you might also take the trouble to advise your staff to welcome young people who come to local branches to open an account, treat them professionally, showing courtesy and understanding and not putting insurmountable barriers in their way. Thank you.