Global Money Week 2026, held from 16 to 22 March under this year’s theme “Plan Your Money, Plant Your Future”, brought together millions of participants worldwide. Across the EFPA network, member associations seized the occasion to launch, celebrate and amplify some of their most ambitious financial education initiatives — from classroom workshops to high-level professional forums.
EFPA Czech Republic: A Decade of ‘Straight Talk About Money’ — 122,700 Participants in One Week
EFPA Czech Republic achieved a landmark milestone this Global Money Week: a record 122,700 participants took part in financial literacy activities across the country during the jubilee 10th edition of its GMW programme, co-organised with yourchance o.p.s. under the coordination of the Ministry of Finance and with the patronage of the Czech National Bank. This year’s motto — ‘Straight Talk About Money’ — called for open, intergenerational dialogue on digital safety, healthy financial habits and personal financial responsibility. Schools were at the heart of the programme, with special lessons, workshops and project days designed around local ownership; a national secondary school competition on financial literacy added a stimulating, competitive dimension for students.
The week concluded with a landmark closing conference at the Czech National Bank — opened, for the first time, to students, parents and the general public alongside educators and specialists. A decade of sustained partnership with schools, regulators and civil society has made the Czech programme one of the most structured and wide-reaching in the entire GMW network.
“We want people to learn not only how to manage money, but how to talk about financial responsibility in the right way.” — Marta Gellová, Chair, EFPA Czech Republic Council
EFPA Spain: Ten Years of Free Financial Workshops — 45,000 Citizens Trained
EFPA Spain’s Financial Education Programme, launched in 2015, has grown into one of Spain’s most impactful private financial literacy initiatives — and Global Money Week provides an annual occasion to reflect on a decade of accumulated impact.
The programme targets professional groups outside the financial sector — doctors, lawyers, engineers and others — offering free workshops to equip citizens with the tools to make informed financial decisions in an environment increasingly shaped by digital credit, complex products and demographic change.
Impact to date:
- Over 45,000 people trained since launch
- More than 1,000 certified volunteer advisers
- 176 active institutional partnerships
- 215 workshops in 2025, reaching 5,736 participants
- Volunteer satisfaction: 9.3 out of 10
Workshops cover budgeting, investment, taxation, housing, insurance, ESG investing and retirement planning — all tailored to adults with no prior financial background. Certified EFPA financial advisers deliver sessions outside working hours, having received pedagogical training from the IEF — Institut d’Estudis Financers.
Since 2023, the UNIvers Financer initiative has extended the programme to university students, focusing on personal finance, entrepreneurship and the transition to working life. EFPA Spain’s annual Online Financial Education Marathon, held each October, reached close to 600 participants in 2024 and expanded in 2025 with new modules on retirement planning.
EFPA Spain’s programme demonstrates how the private sector can drive measurable public good — without public subsidy, powered instead by commitment, ethics and a belief in financial empowerment.
EFPA Poland: Financial Health Checks — Personalised Guidance at Scale
EFPA Polska launched its Financial Health Checks Programme in September 2024, offering free, confidential, 60-minute one-to-one online consultations delivered by more than 60 EFPA-certified volunteer advisers. The programme brings personalised financial support directly to citizens — meeting them where they are, not where the industry expects them to be.
Participants begin by completing a Financial Wellbeing Survey at www.zdrowiefinansowe.com. Based on their results, they book a consultation with a certified adviser. Each session delivers a structured assessment of the participant’s financial health, a personalised action plan, and practical tools for budgeting, building emergency resilience, managing liabilities and planning financial goals. The aim is to help people understand their “financial health temperature” and identify concrete, achievable next steps.
The programme has attracted strong institutional backing, with Bank Pekao S.A., BNP Paribas Bank Polska, ING Poland, mBank S.A., Bank Millennium, PKO Bank Polski, F-Trust iWealth, Dom Inwestycyjny Xelion and VeloBank S.A. among its supporting partners. Participants consistently describe sessions as useful, timely and impactful. EFPA Polska has now submitted a funding application to the Financial Education Fund of the Polish Ministry of Finance to scale the programme nationally.
EFPA Luxembourg: The EFPA Finance Forum — From ESG Theory to Practice
EFPA Luxembourg marked Global Money Week through the latest edition of its flagship EFPA Finance Forum, held on 12 March 2026. Dedicated to Sustainable Finance, the Forum gathered a wide range of stakeholders — regulators, asset managers, private bankers, academics and ESG experts — for a day of substantive dialogue on topics including ESG regulation, sustainable investing, carbon finance and the circular economy.
The Forum serves a dual purpose: educational, through high-quality keynote speeches and expert panel discussions, and pro bono / public interest, as a free platform for knowledge-sharing that contributes to broader understanding beyond commercial interests. EFPA-certified professionals participate both as speakers and as participants, actively disseminating best practices and ethical standards across the financial community.
This year’s edition also integrated a Charity Challenge, strengthening the link between finance, responsibility and social impact — and reinforcing the Forum’s role as a venue where professional excellence meets civic purpose.
EFPA France: Ethics, Finance and the Natural World — The Ethics & Trust in Finance Prize
For Global Money Week 2026, EFPA France chose to spotlight a conviction at the heart of responsible finance: that economy and ecology are not incompatible. To this end, EFPA France highlighted the work of the French-speaking winners of the Ethics & Trust in Finance Global Prize 2024–2025.
Launched by EFPA France in conjunction with the Observatoire de la Finance’s global prize, and chaired by Thomas Lagoarde Segot — a professor of international finance recognised by the Financial Times in 2024 — the prize targets researchers under the age of 35 and rewards work that connects financial thinking with ethical and environmental purpose.
Two winning teams from KEDGE Business School were recognised. The first, comprising Chloé Michon, Jean-Bastien Poinat and Victor Schaaff, explored how mangroves can be integrated into risk management strategies — demonstrating their potential as a form of natural insurance. The second, by Charlotte Creach, Amandine Drouet and Loeiza Lambert, examined how urban planning can combine ecological principles with residents’ quality of life through the concept of eco-districts. Both articles are available in French and English.
The competition will return in 2027. EFPA France’s approach reflects a broader conviction: that supporting the next generation of financially literate, ethically grounded thinkers is itself a form of financial education.
EFPA UK (CII): 834 Volunteer Financial Educators — and Growing
In the United Kingdom, EFPA is represented by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) whose contribution to Global Money Week takes the form of a call to action rather than a single event. CII/PFS leadership encourages its members to participate in “My Personal Finance Skills”, a free, pro bono initiative delivering financial education workshops in schools and youth organisations across the country.
The programme offers workshops on money management, careers and financial capability, delivered by trained volunteers from the insurance and personal finance professions. Since its launch, it has reached over 100,000 students. Its educational materials have been awarded the Financial Education Quality Mark, supported by the Money Advice Service, and are designed to be engaging, accurate and free of commercial branding.
Thanks to mutual recognition of qualifications — DipPFS equating to EFPA EFA, and APFS/FPFS equating to EFPA EFP — EFPA members holding PFS designations are directly eligible to volunteer. The numbers reflect the commitment already shown: 834 EFPA members are registered as financial education volunteers, and between September 2025 and March 2026, 37 EFPA volunteers delivered 86 sessions, reaching nearly 4,000 students.
“Financial education isn’t just for one week a year. It’s a lifelong skill — and you can help deliver it.”
EFPA Austria (VFP): Pro-Bono Consultations on World Financial Planning Day
The Österreichischer Verband Financial Planners — Austria’s financial planning certification body and EFPA’s partner association — marks World Financial Planning Day each year with a nationwide pro bono initiative that puts independent, product-neutral advice directly into citizens’ hands. On 3 October, coinciding with the World Investor Week, more than 60 certified experts across all nine Austrian federal states make themselves available for free, strictly product- and provider-neutral orientation consultations.
The model is deliberately accessible: any citizen with questions about their financial goals can contact a participating certified financial advisor, book an appointment, and receive a structured conversation — at no cost and with no commercial agenda. The breadth of geographic coverage, spanning every Bundesland, reflects the Verband’s commitment to reaching beyond the financial centres. The initiative, anchored in the international World Financial Planning Day, gives concrete local expression to a global message: that quality financial advice should not be the preserve of the wealthy.
Germany: Financial Planning for Women — Closing the Confidence Gap
In Germany, EFPA’s work is carried forward by FPSB Deutschland, which administers both the CFP® certification and the EFPA EFA designation. Among its public-facing initiatives, Frauen*Finanzplanung stands out as a sustained, purposeful effort to address one of the most persistent gaps in financial wellbeing: the structural financial disadvantage faced by women.
The initiative connects women with highly qualified female CFP® professionals for guidance that goes beyond investment advice to encompass the full arc of financial life planning — career breaks, part-time work, pension gaps, inheritance and long-term security. The urgency is underlined by FPSB Deutschland’s own research: in 2025, women in Germany received on average 37% less in retirement income than men, and over 21% of women aged 65 and over were at risk of poverty. Frauen*Finanzplanung is FPSB Deutschland’s answer — not a one-off campaign, but a continuing programme built around the conviction that access to quality, personalised financial advice is itself an equality issue.
EFPA Italy: A Digital Hub for the Retail Investor
EFPA Italy’s contribution to financial education takes a different but complementary form: a dedicated online resource, Educazione Finanziaria al Risparmiatore, that brings accessible, high-quality financial content directly to Italian retail investors. Rather than structured workshops or one-to-one consultations, the initiative curates educational videos, articles and downloadable materials — produced in partnership with industry experts — covering topics that matter to ordinary savers: ESG investing, behavioural finance, investment profiles, the distinction between saving and investing, and the role of the financial adviser in a complex market environment.
The resource reflects a conviction shared across the EFPA network: that financial literacy is not only built in classrooms or consultation rooms, but also through sustained, accessible content that meets people where they are. With over 12,500 certified professionals in Italy and a growing suite of specialist designations — including newly developed certifications in behavioural advice and artificial intelligence — EFPA Italy is well placed to ensure that the content it curates specifically for the retail investor is technically rigorous as well as genuinely useful to non-expert audiences.
EFPA Ireland / IOB: Building the Foundations — A World-First Skills Framework for Financial Services
In Ireland, EFPA is represented by IOB — the Institute of Bankers in Ireland — where holders of the QFA (Qualified Financial Adviser) designation receive dual recognition as EFPA EFA certified professionals. IOB’s contribution to the broader financial education landscape this year takes a structural form: as lead implementer of the Irish Financial Services Skills Framework, a world-first standards-based model co-developed with retail banks, government departments and higher education partners, launched by the Minister for Finance in 2025. Mapping essential financial services skills across four proficiency levels and linking each to validated training programmes, the Framework has since expanded to cover Ireland’s funds sector, reaching a further 19,500 professionals. It is a reminder that financial literacy for citizens begins with the competence of those who advise them.
A Network United by a Common Purpose
Across European countries and through very different approaches, a single thread connects each of these initiatives: the conviction that financial literacy is not a peripheral concern, but a foundation for individual wellbeing and societal resilience, and that financial advisors play a vital role in supporting financial literacy and motivating citizens to work towards their financial stability.
Whether it is a student in Prague learning about budgets, a doctor in Madrid discovering how to plan for retirement, a family in Warsaw gaining clarity over their financial situation, or a young researcher in France reimagining the relationship between finance and nature — EFPA’s network is working to ensure that the benefits of financial knowledge are distributed widely, equitably and sustainably.
Global Money Week is a reminder of why this work matters. For EFPA, it is a window into a year-round commitment.
From Financial Literacy to Financial Health
At the BETTER FINANCE conference on Investor Education in Europe, held during Global Money Week, EFPA Polska Chair Mariola Szymańska delivered a keynote that resonated across the room. Her central message: financial literacy must move beyond knowledge and become a lived practice.
She argued that knowledge alone does not change behaviour — citizens need motivation, habits and daily financial health routines, not merely information. Most people, she noted, do not aspire to become financial experts; they want security, clarity and simple tools. She stressed that the debate on financial advice should focus not on independence as an abstract principle, but on quality, integrity and professionalism — and called for a shared European benchmark, a “golden label”, that would allow citizens to identify qualified advisers in a landscape increasingly blurred by influencers, social media and AI. She presented the Financial Health Check model — a one-hour session measuring financial health, reviewing fundamentals and setting first goals — as a scalable, human-centred solution that Europe can replicate.
About EFPA
EFPA Europe is the leading professional association for financial planners and advisers in Europe, representing over 100,000 certified professionals across 12 countries. EFPA sets standards for financial planning competence and ethics, and works with its member associations to advance financial literacy across the continent.
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