Claudia Segre, after 30 years, he leaves his private banking business and changes his life to devote himself entirely to "global thinking”, an original foundation for education and financial literacy that she created and which she chairs herself. And she right away she throws"Women squared”, a project for the re-employment of women. “I have always dealt with emerging markets. And I still do today: from the point of view of financial culture, Italy is a wonderful but backward emerging country”.
Claudia Segre's passion does not change. After a long time spent battling in the operations rooms of the big banks ("exceptional years, full of stimuli") and in top private banking ("a much quieter activity, perhaps too much for my character) the former general secretary of Assiom Forex has decided in recent days to leave the bank's currency to commit exclusively to the Global Thinking Foundation, which she founded with the aim of develop financial literacy through various activities: scholarships and masters in Italy, scientific research abroad and participation in the tables of the International Monetary Fund and the OECD.
Without neglecting the interest in geopolitical analyzes (as the readers of FIRSTonline, where Segre has a blog, are well aware) which she has developed since the days in which she traveled around the emerging capitals with Mark Moebius. But by transferring the same critical spirit to the subject of financial education. Hence a particular focus on gender policies, which has already resulted in the first initiatives for the social and financial inclusion of women in difficulty. Here is how Segre recounts her new life and the projects of her Foundation in this conversation-interview with FIRSTonline.
”A research conducted by the museum of savings shows that 23 percent of Italian women do not have a current account. Even among working women the percentage is still high, 17 percent. But if there is no economic independence, a situation of subjection is created” notes the Segre, as impatient in the face of injustice as she is attentive to concrete problems.
In short, the theme of economic culture goes beyond the emergency caused by the bank mishaps that affected thousands of savers and which led to the creation of the Financial Education Committee promoted by Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan and chaired by Annamaria Lusardi, an international expert who also participates in Global Thinking activities. “But it is very important – underlines Segre – that the institutions give space to spontaneous initiatives born in civil society. Just as the International Monetary Fund opens up to civil society and its intrinsic forces, the National Strategy Committee for Edufin should do the same”.
As happened, moreover, in the quite a few countries that precede us. Including China and Russia. “The Chinese have promoted an innovative school curriculum overhaul between Financial Education and Fintech from the earliest grades, so that children can calculate compound interest. In Russia, 15 successive levels of financial education have been developed from elementary school to university level”.
We are the Emerging (better to say the Third World) for now, forced to pursue, also because within the G20 and the OECD/INFE there has been a stable discussion not only on financial literacy programs and on the principles of financial inclusion digital, but also "a flourishing of databases and reports on the relationship between financial education, the consumer and social security and insurance aspects which then flow into public pension regulations and which offer ideas for a widespread implementation of social security strategies for families ”.
A process that involves almost all countries, both in Europe and outside, from Australia to Canada. Governments everywhere, displaced by the welfare crisis and the irruption of digital technology that has upset social balances, have moved aware that politics has an important role to play in the game of financial education, aimed at young people but not only.
The action of the Global Thinking Foundation fits into this framework. And the results of the team led by the unstoppable Segre can be seen. Last year the foundation edited and published at its own expense the financial economics glossary "Economics and finance words", a sort of guide to basic finance, the result of the work of a team of young graduates supported by professionals from the Scientific Technical Committee, which brought together the concepts that make up today's finance in an explanatory and exhaustive medium, offering support to the debate on the evolution of the financial markets and on “Financial Inclusion”. The guide, distributed in 150 copies to a targeted audience of high school students, is also available in a digital version.
“These days – says Segre – new even more ambitious projects are starting up”. That is to say:
– From the beginning of October, thanks to a loan from the Cariplo Foundation, a sort of practical compendium of the economy, divided into pills: 25 short stories which help to fill the gaps in the financial, economic and social security fields through a questionnaire, divided by topics and difficulties. Each topic is connected to short explanatory videos (pills) that help the interested party (investor, saver, family) to deepen the topics. From bonds to foreign exchange, up to certificates, the user can take an interactive journey to improve their approach to investments and savings.
– From 2 to 8 October 2017 will be held the World Investor Week, the world investor week, promoted by Iosco, the world forum that brings together financial market operators. Together with Consob, university professors, finance and stock market operators will present a worldwide awareness campaign throughout Italy in terms of financial, savings and investment education, involving not only sector associations, such as the Global Thinking Foundation, but also schools and Municipalities. All the activities were offered free of charge to citizens to provide them with important means from family planning to professional and pension planning.
– But the most fascinating challenge, unprecedented at least in Italy, is that of “Women squared”, an initiative in collaboration with Forex Axiom, which involves, explains Segre, "all the women who, thanks to their experience in the world of finance, have made themselves available to give free and certified financial education courses to other women who are experiencing a moment of difficulty and/or want return to the world of work". Thus a Task Force was created which on the one hand teaches conscious management of the family budget and on the other it contributes to accelerate the process of social inclusion for those women who emerge from situations of economic isolation.
Global Thinking Foundation and Assiom Forex have in fact grouped together with this project women who, coming from the operating rooms or from banking and institutional activities, possess solid knowledge in the financial field that they can make available to those who want to return to being the protagonists of their lives, regaining possession of a social dimension.
In short, financial education is finally making a leap in quality. It is no longer, as has often happened in the past, a pretext for conferences of insiders or for products, perhaps excellent, but destined to be parked in the basement of a bank or a ministry, without the right stimuli and without awareness of the weight strategic theme, at the system level but even more than everyday life.
To hit the leap in quality it is necessary to get off the chair and slip into the social arena, as the volcanic Segre is doing, one who has learned to move since she was a child between the fixed stamps and the accounting of the family firm, managed by her mother Celestina ( other volcano). And that she hasn't lost the desire to solve problems in the meantime.
