20,000 elementary school children participated in Citibank’s Financial Education Programme since December 2004.

Athens, June 26, 2006

Athens. Citibank and the Citigroup Foundation have completed the second consecutive year of the Financial Education Programme's "classes of economy", which visited 5 main Greek cities, Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Patra and Herakleion in Crete. The programme, supported by a €100,000 grant from Citibank and the Citigroup Foundation and designed and implemented by the Hellenic Children's Museum, reached 10,000 primary school children through 400 financial education sessions for the second year, thus getting to a total of 20,000 children since it started in December 2004.

More specifically, the primary school initiative "Economy: Knowledge with…Value" aims at familiarizing children with certain basic economic concepts that affect their everyday life. Through 3 different programmes that vary according to the school class and through educational games and role-plays, the Financial Education Programme discusses among others the difference between "financial needs" and "financial desires", the "market's functions", the meaning of "commerce", the relation between "advertising & market" and "consumer & business".

The specific programme "Economy: Knowledge with…Value" is the first step of Citibank’s initiative in financial education in Greece, which aims at expanding in the next few years to all educational levels, as well as to more specialised audiences. The educational offer of Citibank in Greece follows the Citigroup Foundation’s 10-year, $200 million global financial education commitment to support financial education in the 100 countries worldwide where the group has offices. It stems from the belief that as a financial organisation, the bank can contribute effectively in the form of "financial understanding and knowledge".

According to Chris Vassiliades, Business Manager of Citibank Consumer Group Greece, "We are very pleased by schools’ response to our Financial Education Programme during its second year and thus we plan to continue and expand it. We believe this programme contributes in making children familiar to economy, as they experience it in their daily life and this is what teachers’ feedback confirms. We, as Citibank, we are proud to be able to offer children a piece of knowledge".

Citibank’s initiative was supported by more than 100 Citibank staff who volunteered in school classes and supported enthusiastically the implementation of the various educational activities.  Participants included top executives of Citibank.