ASIC’s Financial
literacy program
2012-2013
Contents
Introduction from the Chairman ........................................................................................................................... 2
National Financial Literacy Strategy .................................................................................................................... 3
ASIC's MoneySmart website ............................................................................................................................... 4
ASIC's MoneySmart Teaching program ............................................................................................................ 14
Partnerships ....................................................................................................................................................... 20
Introduction from the Chairman
ASIC is the lead government agency with responsibility for
financial literacy.
This report covers ASIC’s achievements in this area over the past year.
ASIC’s MoneySmart website now attracts over 400,000 visitors a month. Our suite of
calculators and apps is extremely popular, with increasing use on smartphones and
tablets.
Our market research survey shows that 25% of people recognise the MoneySmart
name and 8% recall using the website recently. ASIC’s MoneySmart is trusted as an
independent source of information and guidance. We help people make savvy financial
decisions, get control of their money and avoid costly mistakes.
We are also working to improve the financial literacy of the next generation. Our MoneySmart Teaching
program is linked to the Australian curriculum. It features high quality online resources and units of work for
primary and secondary school students. This year over 8,000 teachers undertook professional development in
this area, with many more to come. Over time, this will increase the number of students getting quality
education on financial issues.
We have developed financial literacy units of competency in vocational education for apprentices and
trainees. These apprentices are the small business owners of the future.
Our financial literacy work involves partnerships with a growing number of organisations who are active and
enthusiastic about financial literacy. MoneySmart is the central hub for consumer and investor information on
money matters, with more than 13,000 links to MoneySmart from other websites.
We help other organisations by complementing their work:
 The financial services industry saves money by linking to the independent content on MoneySmart rather
than building their own tools.
 Community organisations use our content to deliver financial literacy programs to vulnerable people.
 Employers use our resources for employee financial education programs (e.g. Australian Defence Force).
 Teachers access our online teaching resources and professional development.
 Other Government agencies partner with us to inform people on financial topics (e.g. Australian Taxation
Office and Centrelink).
I’m excited to see all the developments in financial literacy that will help build a more prosperous Australia –
for families for the financial services industry and for Australia as a whole.
Greg Medcraft
Chairman, ASIC
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National Financial Literacy Strategy
financialliteracy.gov.au
Australia’s National Financial
Literacy Strategy is the framework
for many organisations to work
together to develop and deliver
initiatives to improve the financial
literacy of all Australians.
The Strategy has four pillars:
 giving Australians trusted and
independent information, tools and
ongoing support
 developing additional innovative
solutions to drive improved financial wellbeing and behavioural change
 using educational pathways to build financial literacy for all Australians
 working in partnership with the private sector, the education sector, community organisations and
relevant government agencies.
The Strategy is coordinated by ASIC and promoted and supported by the Australian Government Financial
Literacy Board, a non-statutory body that provides strategic advice to government and ASIC on financial
literacy issues. ASIC first released the Strategy in 2011, together with research about people’s financial
behaviour and how to most effectively influence their financial decision-making.
This year ASIC is leading a review of the Strategy, to take stock of progress and develop a framework for
action that addresses the key priorities over 2014–2017.
The consultation process for the review was launched at the National Financial Literacy Forum in April 2013
which brought together 140 stakeholders from the business, community, education and government sectors.
ASIC also released a consultation paper seeking feedback about the priorities for the next few years, and
launched a stocktake survey to create a snapshot of current financial literacy initiatives around Australia. The
refreshed Strategy will be released in early 2014.
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ASIC's MoneySmart website
moneysmart.gov.au
The goal of the MoneySmart website is to
give people clear information, useful tools
and personalised guidance so they can
make the most of their money.
Unique visitors to MoneySmart
Since launch, MoneySmart has seen an increase of
visitors from around 86,000 unique visitors in March
2011 to almost 420,000 in June 2013.
Who is MoneySmart for?
ASIC's MoneySmart website is for all Australians, whatever their life stage.

Young adults – avoid the traps in credit cards, car loans and mobile phones, achieve savings goals

Young families – buy a home or renovate, pay off a mortgage, manage their debts

Empty nesters or older single people – take stock of their financial situation, build their super

Pre-retirees – understand retirement products or formulate retirement plans

Women under 40 – get their debts under control or budget towards buying their first home
Brand tracking survey
Our brand tracking surveys reveal that more and more Australian adult internet
users recognise MoneySmart and are using the website.
By January 2013, 25% of Australians were aware of MoneySmart and 8.3% had visited the website.
Actions people took after visiting MoneySmart included:






keeping a closer eye on spending
shopping around for a better deal
increasing the amount they saved
preparing or updating a budget
being more alert about or avoiding scams
reviewing their financial situation.
We received very positive feedback about our calculators, with 92% of users finding them useful.
88% of users take action on their finances after visiting MoneySmart
Brand tracking results
Adult Australian internet users who:
October 2011
April 2012
August 2012
January 2013
Are aware of the MoneySmart brand
16%
19%
21%
25%
Have visited the MoneySMart website
5%
7%
7.8%
8.3%
Have taken specific action as a result of
visiting MoneySmart
91%
89%
89%
88%
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How people come to MoneySmart
This year 55% of MoneySmart’s traffic has
come from searches for financial topics
on search engine websites.
MoneySmart is a respected independent website
which ranks highly in search engines such as Google.
Calculators and tools
ASIC’s MoneySmart website features 23 financial calculators and they have always
been the most popular content on the website. In 2012–13 our calculators received
3.1 million views – almost double the usage of the previous year.
Top MoneySmart calculators
Budget planner
Mortgage calculator
60,000 views per month
34,000 views per month
Retirement planner
Income tax calculator
20,000 views per month
16,000 views per month
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Reverse Mortgage calculator
From 2013, lenders offering reverse
mortgages are required to explore
scenarios with potential borrowers, using an
ASIC calculator.
The reverse mortgage calculator we developed helps
illustrate the impact of a reverse mortgage on people’s
home equity over time. The calculator also allows users
to explore the risks of house price and interest rate
changes with different borrowing levels.
'All good stuff. I'm a mortgage broker and
this unbiased information is long overdue'
User comment about reverse mortgage calculator
TrackMySpend app
In 2012 we launched a new mobile app designed to track
expenses on‑the-go.
TrackMySpend aims to help people develop good spending habits including:

expense tracking and keeping within a set budget

understanding spending patterns

distinguishing between needs and wants to highlight saving opportunities.
With over 15,000 downloads per month on average (200,000+ downloads since
launch) and a 4.5 star rating, the app has continually ranked highly on iTunes. It was
named ‘Best Budgeting App’ by David Koch on Sunrise in April 2013.
‘I love this app ... The best feature is how it shows my
monthly budget & clearly displays what I have spent & what
is remaining.’
Lisa
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Mobile technology
More and more people each month are
accessing MoneySmart from their smartphones
or tablets.
To meet this growing trend MoneySmart is redesigning its
webpages and apps to optimise their operation on small and
touch screen devices.
Videos
MoneySmart uses videos to complement its web
content, enhance its education resources and
engage people through social media.
We have 231 videos live on MoneySmart’s YouTube channel –
youtube.com/MoneySmartAU
There have been over 114,000 views of these videos since
MoneySmart launched, with 63,000 views this year. The most
viewed videos are on unclaimed money and budgeting.
Social media
MoneySmart encourages people to talk about money online, using social media.
At the end of this year MoneySmart had:

17,300 Facebook likes (an increase of 16,300 for the year)

and had generated over 44,000 stories in individuals’ timelines

3,200 Twitter followers and had reached over

1.3 million people via Twitter.

facebook.com/MoneySmartAU

twitter.com/MoneySmartTeam
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Feedback
‘Your website is an amazing and highly valuable resource.
Every topic that I needed answers to is captured in your
website and is extremely easy to understand.’
Farah
'My favourite retirement planner is the one provided by ASIC
on its MoneySmart website. If you have never had a look
you should!'
John Collett, Sydney Morning Herald
‘Thanks for such a comprehensive, simplistic, user friendly
calculator. It’s almost perfect.’
MoneySmart user on the budget planner
‘This whole site is excellent, thank you. Every page is useful
and well written.’
MoneySmart user
‘Simple clear layout. Very good app. Would recommend it to
anyone who’s interested to know where their money goes.’
Tina on TrackMySpend app
‘I absolutely love the MoneySmart website. It is so easy to
find your way around and all topics are interesting and
informative.’
Carol
‘Thank you for providing the budget planner spreadsheet.
Very user friendly and helped me get on top of things. Much
appreciated and better than the ones you can buy.’
Simone
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Publications
In 2012–13 we distributed more than 320,000 MoneySmart publications.
We published new booklets on budgeting and scams, as well as a new series of Indigenous publications:
Budgeting and scam publications
Indigenous publications
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Promotions and campaigns
Here are some of the campaigns ASIC ran in
2012–13.
TrackMySpend campaign
We launched the TrackMySpend app in August 2012 with an
infographic and an online spending clock which totalled people’s
household spending in real time. Both tools were shared on social
media and started conversations on talk back radio and TV.
Bloggers and online news sites featured the infographic.
The campaign achieved 80 media appearances (including The
7pm Project) and 27,000 people downloaded the app in the first
week of the campaign.
Unclaimed money campaign
The unclaimed money campaign we run each year encourages
people to search for their lost money on ASIC’s database, which holds the records for millions of dollars in lost
bank accounts, shares and life insurance policies.
The November 2012 unclaimed money campaign achieved national media coverage with 750,000 unique
visitors conducting almost 4 million searches.
From November to December 2012 there were 1,840 successful claims for lost money.
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Advertising
ASIC launched the first MoneySmart advertising campaign in June 2012 to raise
awareness and encourage visits to the website.
The focus was on radio and print advertising in major metropolitan and regional areas. Online advertising also
appeared on travel, home buying, parenting and car websites, where people were at financial decision points
and where messages would be relevant to their needs. Most of the online advertisements linked directly to
calculators on MoneySmart.
During the month of the advertising campaign there were 236,000 unique visitors to MoneySmart, which was
a 60% increase in traffic from the previous months.
Advertising in other languages
During June 2012, ASIC advertised MoneySmart on community radio stations and in newspapers in Arabic,
Chinese, Greek, Italian, Turkish and Vietnamese. MoneySmart has web content, videos, audio and
publications in 26 languages.
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Women’s advertising campaign
In 2013 our advertising campaign targeted women under 45, to inspire them to take simple steps to improve
their financial future.
It featured four real-life case study videos of women who have used MoneySmart. These videos were
promoted through ads in major women’s magazines and metropolitan newspapers as well as online.
We also encouraged conversations with women about money on Facebook. Over 75% of MoneySmart’s
Facebook community are women.
Real life case studies
The four videos on MoneySmart that were promoted in major women's magazines, in newspapers and online.
Nicole escapes the debt cycle.
Michelle's journey from debt to home ownership.
Sophie plans ahead but still has fun.
Zoe avoids the money problems that can destroy
relationships.
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Advertising for Indigenous audiences
We conducted radio and digital advertising for Indigenous audiences. The digital advertising linked people to
four videos featuring The Last Kinection, a popular Indigenous brother and sister duo.
Videos featuring The Last Kinection
Video 1: Buying a car. Joel reminds his sister Naomi
how to avoid traps when she buys a new car.
Video 2: Avoiding phone bill shock. Naomi and Joel
Wenitong discuss how to avoid bill shock with your mobile
phone.
Video 3: Super. Last Kinection know plenty about
music but not enough about their super.
Video 4: Funeral plans. Joel's shocked by what he finds
when he checks out a funeral plan his Aunty wants to buy.
MoneySmart Rookie education initiative
In June 2013 ASIC launched the MoneySmart Rookie education initiative to help
young people cope with the financial challenges of transitioning to adulthood.
MoneySmart Rookie features new content on both the
MoneySmart and MoneySmart Teaching websites, including
videos, a community educator guide and lesson plans for teachers.
ASIC will promote the content at youth forums, workshops and
conferences, as well as training educators in the community and
youth justice sectors.
ASIC staff at the launch of MoneySmart Rookie education initiative
A poster created for the campaign.
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ASIC's MoneySmart Teaching program
Teaching our young people good money and financial habits are some of the most
valuable skills we can give them.
It is important that we skill up our young people to manage their money
as they are the next generation of consumers.
ASIC’s MoneySmart Teaching program implements the Federal
Government’s ‘Helping Our Kids Understand Finances’ initiative.
It has four components:

Embedding financial literacy in the Australian curriculum

Training teachers and providing professional development

Developing online teaching resources for schools

Creating partnerships with education departments and schools to
progress financial literacy around Australia.
ASIC’s MoneySmart Teaching resources are available at
teaching.moneysmart.gov.au
The program builds the financial literacy capabilities of young Australians
and helps educators, families and community members teach young
people about five basic financial principles:

Planning

Spending

Saving

Donating

Investing.
Year 1 students from Singleton Primary in Western Australia, learning about needs and wants as part of the F-2 Integrated
Maths Unit 'Pancakes make a difference'.
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The Australian Curriculum
MoneySmart Teaching uses real-life scenarios for learning across the Australian
Curriculum areas of English, Maths and Science.
Partnerships
This year MoneySmart Teaching was
delivered through a National Partnership
Agreement in five states and territories: New
South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia,
South Australia and the Australian Capital
Territory. To ensure a national approach ASIC
engaged directly with schools in Queensland,
the Northern Territory and Tasmania, with
education department support.
A project officer was appointed in each state
and territory to deliver the MoneySmart
Teaching program nationally.
Students at Essington School with State Minister for Education, Peter
chandler, at the launch of the Northern Territory MoneySmart Teaching
program.
MoneySmart Teaching's digital resource – Entertainment – which teaches students about the cost of data
usage, games, in app purchases and downloads.
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Professional Learning for Teachers
Professional learning for teachers is a primary focus of MoneySmart Teaching, to
build teacher capacity and confidence to deliver effective financial literacy
education to young people.
This year ASIC delivered professional learning to
8,003 teachers across Australia.
ASIC’s MoneySmart Teaching program is aligned
with the Australian Professional Standards for
Teachers and has delivered professional learning
through:

National conferences – with over 200
primary and secondary school teachers
participating from the State, Catholic and
Independent sectors, who then went back to
their schools to implement the program and
run professional learning workshops for other
teachers

Teacher workshops – that provided an
introduction to the importance of financial
literacy education and how to embed
consumer and financial literacy into the
school curriculum

MoneySmart Teaching online modules –
engaging, flexible, self paced modules on the
MoneySmart Teaching website
(teaching.moneysmart.gov.au) for all
teachers, especially those in rural and remote
areas.
Primary teachers displaying MoneySmart Teaching resources
as part of their professional learning at a Primary School
Conference in Adelaide.
'What can I say but WOW – you have certainly covered all
the bases with it both from the point of view of professional
development and professional learning for teachers... It is
also very encouraging to see the program has been written
in line with the Australian Curriculum.'
Janine Matheson, Teacher Registration Board of the Northern Territory
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MoneySmart Schools
In 2012–13 ASIC partnered with the education
sector to establish 92 MoneySmart Schools across
Australia. These schools trialled the MoneySmart
Teaching packages and a range of teaching and
learning resources.
Feedback from teachers and schools trialling the
MoneySmart Teaching resources was extremely
positive and is being used to improve the program.
The Australian Council of Educational Research is
evaluating the program.
Map showing MoneySmart trial schools in 2012-13.
'It was a good program that students
enjoyed. I was surprised with some
students at initially how little they knew
about money.'
MoneySmart Schools survey Year 9 Maths teacher
Mypolonga Public School, South Australia – Calculating
profit from the school enterprise venture selling goods to
passengers on passing paddle steamers.
'All the teachers in my unit and the
children absolutely loved this unit of
work. The parents commented on
the fun that the children were having
while they were learning. It was
great.'
MoneySmart Schools survey Year 1 teachers –
'Pancakes make a difference' unit
Sacred Heart Primary School in Mildura with chocolate
crackles they made to sell at school using a MoneySmart
Teaching unit of work.
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MoneySmart Teaching Resources
teaching.moneysmart.gov.au
ASIC’s MoneySmart Teaching website is the premier
national consumer and financial literacy education hub for
educators by providing:

teaching and learning resources (print, digital, video)

online teacher professional learning

a personal learning program to support teacher
financial well-being.
The MoneySmart Teaching website offers resources for
students from Foundation (age 5) to Year 12, aligned to the
Australian Curriculum.
Resources produced this year include:

Primary and Secondary Teaching packages – 17
units of work and four teacher/facilitator guides
(12,750 teaching packages were downloaded and
9,450 teaching packages in hard copy were
distributed to schools)

Videos – 20 videos ranging from expert advice
interviews and best practice case studies in schools
to videos outlining the issues facing young people
(videos were viewed 27,000 times)

Digital activities – 18 multimedia activities (graphics, audio and interactivity) with real life skills such
as recognising and counting money, managing a budget and using a mobile phone responsibly

MoneySmart Town Game –
MoneySmart Town is a multiplayer,
real-time game (played by over 300
schools)

Ava makes a difference big book –
created for Foundation to Year 12, to
be read to the class by a teacher as
part of the F-2 Unit ‘Pancakes make a
difference’ (300 books printed and
also available online).
Page 18 of 20
Financial health for teachers
MoneySmart Teaching also features the ‘Financial Health for Teachers’ program, to help teachers improve
their personal finances so they can better promote financial literacy to students. There are videos, audio
podcasts and a newsletter from media commentator Scott Pape, covering topics such as planning for
retirement, managing debt and surviving divorce.
Video from the Financial Health for Teachers series
In this video primary teacher Luke Abdallah explains how he and his wife have approached investing.
Teaching resources for apprentices and trainees
ASIC has developed units of competency which are
endorsed as electives in the Financial Services Training
Package.
The units of competency are:

Be MoneySmart (Cert III)

Be MoneySmart through a Career in Small Business (Cert IV).
The competencies will be used within Certificate III and Certificate IV
qualifications. They will be supported by online modules and real-life
scenarios of young people from a range of occupations including an
electrician, child care worker, carpenter, mechanic, plumber and chef. These
modules will be available in 2014. They will help these small business owners
of the future develop basic financial skills.
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Partnerships
MoneySmart Week
moneysmartweek.org.au
MoneySmart Week is an annual
independent national initiative
promoting the importance of
financial literacy.
It is coordinated by a non-profit
organisation established by the Australian
Government Financial Literacy Board and
involves teams of volunteers from industry,
community and government agencies.
Over 160 events were held in communities
and workplaces across Australia in
September 2012. These included webinars,
presentations, quizzes, seminars, online
competitions for school students and the
MoneySmart Week Awards, which recognise outstanding achievements in financial literacy across categories
such as research, schools, workplaces and the community.
The call to action was for all Australians to take the next step in their financial health:
‘Do a Money Health Check’.
Financial Literacy Community of Practice
ASIC’s Financial Literacy Community of Practice is now in its fifth year.
Each month ASIC hosts presentations via video link to promote dialogue, partnerships and information
exchange between all those involved in financial literacy work. The Community has over 400 participants
from the education, financial services, not-for-profit and government sectors in Australia and New Zealand.
Speakers and topics cover issues such as Indigenous financial literacy, money issues affecting the most
vulnerable sectors of the community, current research work and results of programs run by various agencies.
Further information
If you’d like more information about ASIC’s MoneySmart website please email contact@moneysmart.gov.au,
contact ASIC on 1300 300 630 or visit www.moneysmart.gov.au.
Disclaimer
Please note that this is a summary giving you basic information about a particular topic. It does not cover the
whole of the relevant law regarding that topic, and it is not a substitute for professional advice.
© Australian Securities and Investments Commission
ISBN 978-0-9806482-1-8 | November 2013
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