"Financial Management Education Essential to Prevent Excessive 'Debt Investment' Among 2030 Generation"

Han Jaeyoung, Director of the Korea Financial Investment Education Institute under the Korea Financial Investment Association
Mandatory Personal Financial Management Education in High Schools in 18 US States
Focused Financial Investment Education for Children and Adolescents... Active Pension Education for Office Workers

"The issue of the 2030 generation's 'debt investment (debt-fueled investment)' problem, which emerged as a social issue after the COVID-19 pandemic, could have been avoided if proper personal finance education had been provided."

Han Jaeyoung, President of the Korea Financial Investment Education Institute, recently said this in an interview with Asia Economy. He emphasized, "Koreans have difficulty making investments suited to their life cycle and steadily building assets because they have not received institutional and systematic financial investment education from a young age."

Hanjaeyoung, the head of the Financial Investment Education Institute, is answering questions during an interview with Asia Economy.

The Korea Financial Investment Education Institute is an organization under the Korea Financial Investment Association, which has financial companies as its members. It provides professional financial investment education for experts such as financial companies and institutional investors. Additionally, it offers education to help the general public develop a rational investment mindset for successful lifelong asset management.

Since this year, President Han has focused on financial investment education for the general public, conducting 'Employee Pension Education' and 'Youth Financial Investment Education.' He stated, "General investors need to abandon unhealthy investment habits such as concentrating only on theme stocks or investing with borrowed money to increase trust and development in our capital market."

President Han explained, "In the short term, some may profit from trading theme stocks, but those people eventually incur losses and exit the market. Our goal at the Financial Investment Education Institute is to educate the concept of investment from an early age." He added, "In the U.S., more states are making personal finance education mandatory as it is essential for individuals to live. They teach from managing allowance to banking, insurance, credit management, and investment."

In the U.S., the importance of personal finance education has been emphasized since the 2008 global financial crisis, and currently, 18 states mandate personal finance education in high schools. This accounts for 40.5% of all high school students in the U.S. Personal finance education covers topics closely related to daily life, such as income and expenses, savings and investment, credit management, and risk management.

President Han said, "The most important aspect of financial investment education for children and adolescents is to help them grow into individuals capable of making rational financial decisions." He stressed, "They should understand the risks of borrowing, the true meaning of investment, and take responsibility for their own financial investment life." He also mentioned, "Although we want to reach the entire population, it is realistically difficult, so we decided to start properly from upper elementary grades. Recently, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Education to provide education during after-school care hours."

Another focus of President Han is pension education, which forms the foundation of life after retirement. He said, "Many people still do not understand retirement pensions well and have vague fears about old age," and added, "We see pension education for employees nearing retirement as important and are focusing on pension content."

The Korea Financial Investment Education Institute has produced videos and webbooks as 'comprehensive pension content.' It provides understanding of various pension products such as the National Pension, retirement pensions, and private pensions, along with practical pension investment information and methods. Content such as 'Creating a lifelong monthly salary with pensions after retirement,' 'Complete tax guide when receiving the National Pension,' and 'What benefits arise when an Individual Savings Account (ISA) meets a pension account?' are designed to make potentially difficult pension-related topics easy to understand. They also offer free retirement pension education for workplaces with 50 or more employees.

President Han said, "As retirement approaches, we focus education not only on asset growth but also on the importance of asset management," and added, "In addition to online content, we plan to expand programs where we visit companies directly to provide pension education if individual companies request it for their employees."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.