I agree with the bankers, and that's a surprise

I have, previously, posted on other sites, my objection to paying through my FSA levy for a job that should be funded by government through taxation. The legal profession do not pay to educate the public on legal matters or accountants pay to educate them on, say, tax matters. So why must the financial services community pay to educate them on financial matters?

Posted by: Mike Hillier

Not surprised

I'm not surprised the banks aren't keen on paying for financial education. It's probably because the biggest lesson most people need to learn is 'don't get financial advice from your bank'!

Posted by: James Ross

I agree with Mike

It seems this Government wants to do legislate for everything. 500 new laws since Labour came to power 12 years ago or nearly 3.5 new laws each month. Plus many thousands of new bits of legislation. No wonder no one knows what is going on they are too busy filling out forms for all these new laws and legislation. Financial education is simple and does not need a £50 million spent on trying to do the obvious. Don't spend what you cannot afford, save all you can, pay off debt as early as you can etc. How hard is that? Sadly with the FSA having created so many regulations and rules since they were formed by Mr Brown even they do not know what they are doing hence why we are in the mess we are in now. The only "Financial Education" that is needed is for Mr Brown and his FSA friends to go back to school and learn the basics.

Posted by: Michael Fallas

Finance Education

Perhaps the Govt. thinks that now banks won't be paying enormous bonuses they will have plenty to spend on educating the public in money matters! As to be expected, as IFAs allegedly earn fortunes from misselling they can also afford to pay another levy! This govt. doesn't want to take responsibility for anything and neither do they believe that the public at large should take responsibility for their own actions.

Posted by: Tony

Pearls before

Of course the banks are right and the Government is so, so wrong. I have blogged on this till I’m blue in the face. It is the basic education system that needs fixing. Look at Parliament’s own statistics: 17.8 million adults suffer with poor literacy and 23.8 million with poor numeracy. That is 75% of the workforce for heaven’s sake!! Britain ranks 14th in the Global Skills League Table. All this in spite of £5billion being spent of training between 2001 and 2007. (Commons Public Accs Cttee). A quote from Patricia Hewitt when she was at Education: 50% of the UK population don’t know what 50% means’. And financial services are supposed to educate the public! Anyway the FSA already levies an amount from us for this. Can we therefore take it that if this initiative comes to pass the FSA will no longer have this as part of their remit and therefore will be able to reduce their fees to the rest of us? Used for education – pull the other one – it’s just another of Gormless Gordon’s stealth taxes.

Posted by: Harry Katz

Finance education

It is a good thing that we have this place to vent our feelings as otherwise some of us would burst with indignation. Why should banks, or anyone else in the finance industry, pay for education? There is no logic at all, unless the government also thinks that oil companies should teach drivers to drive safely, the RNLI compelled to teach everyone to swim, grocers forced to run courses on healthy eating, etc.

Posted by: Michael Wainwright