Workers gained confidence since acquiring financial knowledge

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Cheng Zhongde is a Safety Officer on a construction site. In 2009 when he moved to Jiangsu from his hometown Sichuan, he was almost penniless. His parents were in their 80s and his two kids were still at school. As the only breadwinner in the family, he left his hometown to work in a construction site that is totally foreign for him.

In 2014, a friend approached him and said there was an investment project from which he can make lots of money, which is at least RMB 9.8 million . As he’s trying to make a quick buck, he trusted them and invested tens of thousands borrowed from relatives and friends. At the end, he found the investment project illegal.

There are many construction workers like him on the construction sites of “Belt and Road Initiative” projects. As these projects usually last for a long time and they are thrown into a more enclosed environment than general engineering projects, they’re likely to fall prey to financial frauds due to poor financial literacy.

Targeting at construction workers on the “Belt and Road Initiative” projects, the financial literacy programme supported by HSBC helped construction workers to enhance their financial knowledge and protect their earnings by holding financial knowledge training workshops, developing financial sitcoms with NGOs and etc.

After attending these training sessions, Cheng Zhongde mastered basic financial knowledge and started to realise that there is no free lunch, and that he needs to keep his feet on the ground to make money.

Furthermore, HSBC funded and developed over a dozen financial education courses designed for elderlies in local communities, students, young people in rural areas and other groups. From 2005 to present, HSBC has launched more than 40 public financial education programmes all over mainland China, with a total investment of over 220 million RMB. These endeavors have benefited more than 1 million people and promoted benign development of the society to fuel sustainable economic growth and sustainable social development.

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