FDIC Advisory Committee
November 19, 2003

Where We Are:

• We are extremely pleased with the tremendous success that we have had with our Money Smart Program.
• Just last month we received a Service to America Medal by the Partnership for Public Service for making a significant contribution to the nation in activities related to business and commerce.
• We are getting closer to our original distribution goals, with over 93,000 copies of Money Smart to 24,000 financial institutions, faith-based organizations, city and community colleges, and federal government partners.
• We are working with the White House on several projects: the President's Partnership for Prosperity Initiative, Office of Faith-based Initiatives, and Office of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
• We are committed to measuring our success. One major survey, with assistance from the Gallup Organization, was completed in 2003. It showed that, of the first 9,000 organizations that had ordered Money Smart, over 100,000 persons had completed at least one Money Smart module, and over 14,000 banking relationships had been formed. As of October 30, 2003, total of 626 Money Smart Alliances have been established. Of those, approximately 607 Regional Money Smart Alliances have been established by FDIC's regional Community Affairs Officers. The national partnerships include organizations that have adopted the Money Smart curriculum as part of their national initiatives. Examples include the IRS and their Earned Income Tax Credit Program and HUD's America's Homeownership Challenge, whose goal is to increase minority homeownership by at least 5.5 million before the end of the decade.
• Spanish, Chinese and Korean language versions of the Money Smart curriculum are now available.
• Earlier this month we hosted a held very successful and widely attended symposium, "Tapping the Unbanked Market: Helping People Enter the Financial Mainstream." Over 300 attended from all sectors of the financial services, community organizations, and educational and social service organizations. During the symposium, we asked the participants to fill out a survey on "Best Practices"regarding the unbanked. A policy paper outlining the results will be released in the first quarter of 2004.

New Money Smart in 2004:

• We fully recognize that Money Smart is more than just distribution numbers; we are also committed to continuous evaluation and improvement of the program. Currently we are analyzing data collected by the Gallup Organization from trainers teaching the Money Smart program. The results of this research will be ready in early 2004.
• A Money Smart Evaluation Survey Project focusing on the participants of Money Smart before and after undergoing the program is scheduled for implementation in the first quarter of 2004.
• In the area new product versions, Money Smart is being translated into Vietnamese for release in the first quarter of 2004 in conjunction with a special Vietnamese event. An interactive version of Money Smart on CD-ROM will be available in early 2004. This new product will be available in English and Spanish. We are currently exploring some potential partnership opportunities for an exciting national launch for this product.
• We are also expanding our financial education efforts in several critical areas:



1. Reaching out to the Hispanic market. This will involve establishing a stronger presence among national Hispanic community organizations and business community through a strategic relationship marketing program that is currently under review. We will also create synergistic opportunities with existing relations among Hispanic organizations at the regional level. This plan will be supported with an aggressive Hispanic media outreach plan that will establish on-going communication with members of the Hispanic media about our Money Smart Program as well as other consumer related activities. Since the Money Smart program is now almost three years old we want to identify some of our successful Money Smart participants and highlight their accomplishments in the media as well.



2. Establishing an employer based financial education model. This project that will involve partnering with major corporations and financial institutions to provide financial education and banking services to these companies' low and moderate income employees. A proposal currently is being fleshed out.



3. Working on remittance programs. The FDIC will play a key role in identifying issues related to immigrant populations. One area that we plan to focus on is a collaboration with the InterAmerican Development Bank to study remittance programs used by ICBA, Citbank, and others, and recommend ways in which the banking industry can play a larger role in allowing persons to safely and cost effectively transfer monies to their home countries.