ReportageBasics of a budget, notions of savings or insurance, prevention of scams: in Mandres-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne) and in the other centers of the universal national service (SNU), some 40,000 young people aged 15 to 17 were introduced to financial education.
“Your friend Matthieu has been missing for five days, you haven’t heard from him. To investigate and find out what happened to him, we started by searching his room and here is what we found…” Monday July 11, in a vast room of the universal national service center (SNU) of Mandres-les-Roses, in the Val-de-Marne, the day begins with an activity close to the escape game or the treasure hunt.
The objective is, of course, to find Matthieu… but above all to introduce financial education to the twenty young people present in the room, in a fun way. The clues found in Matthieu’s belongings are, in fact, receipts, invoices, checks, reminders allowing him to reconstitute his monthly budget, by sorting his expenses and receipts. The opportunity for Nicolas Cortinovis, deputy director of the Créteil branch of the Banque de France and leader of this activity, to explain the basics of budgeting to participants, aged 15 to 17, and to help them find the three digits of the secret code of Matthieu’s briefcase, where his bank account statement is hidden, object of a new enigma.
Through the puzzles, the young people, divided into five teams, will be able to learn more about how a bank account works (RIB, overdraft, agios, etc.), a savings account, the main means of payment, credit, insurance. But also recognize a counterfeit note. And discover how to avoid certain financial scams, such as that of the mule, a check cashing trap that is particularly rampant on social networks.
“He’s weird, this guy, his account is blocked and he asks us to collect his pay. » On one of the five tables, Amandine reads the car sale ads found in the famous Matthieu’s trash can and must, with her neighbors Lili, Talina and Irina, identify those that come from fraudsters.
“For my studies, either I do accounting, like my mother, or I work in styling, or I take care of horses, but I prefer stylist”, launches the 15 and a half-year-old high school student from Yvelines. If the four young girls talk a lot about Parcoursup and school orientation, a few hours from the results of the French baccalaureate, money management – subject of this morning – also clearly arouses their interest. “You have to save, you don’t know what life will be like”says Irina. “Apart from that, this morning, I had never done anything around the budget”explains Lili, a young Parisian who is going to high school.
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