PRESS RELEASE

European Money Quiz 2020 beats the virus

• Europe’s biggest online financial literacy quiz played nearly half a million times

BRUSSELS, 18 June 2020 – Young students from secondary schools across Europe this week had their financial literacy challenged by YouTube viewers worldwide in the European Money Quiz’s Grand Final, a live online game show hosted by the European Banking Federation that brought to an end this year’s quiz season.

The European Money Quiz is Europe’s biggest financial literacy contest and attracted nearly half a million game plays this year, up from about 160.000 in 2019, via the Kahoot platform. The quiz was launched in 2017 as an initiative to promote financial education by national banking associations in Europe, under coordination by the European Banking Federation.

“This time it is for fun. Later in life, it will be for real,” said Hilde Johanssen, financial education specialist at FinanceNorway, chair of the EBF Financial Education Project Group.

The 16 June Grand Final was organized as an online alternative to the European championship that had been scheduled for Brussels in May, but was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Despite the school closures across Europe, national finals were still held in 22 of the 28 countries that had planned to take part this year.

“Thanks to the resilience and flexibility in Europe’s educational community it was possible to keep the European Money Quiz going in 2020,” said Raymond Frenken, European coordinator of the quiz. “Some countries were very creative. The innovative teaching method behind the quiz combines live streams on Youtube with the Kahoot quiz platform. This makes it fun and straightforward for teachers to reach out to their students even when they are at home, and they can easily integrate it into their online teaching programmes.”

Practice quizzes available in 25 languages

Students were also encouraged to practice for the European Money Quiz at home using the dozens of Kahoot quizzes available in as many as 25 different languages.

Winners of the national competitions in 2018 and 2019 all won a ticket to Brussels to compete in the European championships, hosted by the EBF. This year, however, travel restrictions made it impossible to bring young students to Brussels. Instead, the choice was made to host a Grand Final online, as a fun interactive event combining a Zoom video conference with Kahoot quizzes and a live feed on Youtube to bring students, teachers and hosts together online.

Among the participants in the Grand Final were 29 of this year’s national winners. They had their financial literacy knowledge challenged directly by the online audience. It was clear that the national champions were difficult to beat: three of the top five performers in the Grand Final were the national winners, including the representatives of Spain, North Macedonia and the Czech Republic.

Mateo González Villar from Spain, who had previously won the Spanish national final, was the winner of the Grand Final, followed closely by Hristijan Andovski from North Macedonia and the Czech Republic’s team, with Zuzana Tomkova and Julie Gbelcova.

The European Money Quiz is a European competition on financial literacy for 13-15-year-olds. Competitors measure their knowledge on personal finance along four main themes: money and transactions; planning and managing finances; risk and reward; and the financial landscape. The pedagogic content of the quiz is aligned with the OECD/INFE guidelines and core competencies on financial literacy for the youth.

Participating countries in 2020: Albania, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. The practice quizzes attract online players from all over the world, with the majority of them coming from the United Kingdom, France and Turkey.

BACKGROUND:

• For a replay of the 2020 Grand Final: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DJtz2Aeyww
• For the quiz questions from the Grand Final: com/EMQgrandfinal
• For more information on the European Money Quiz, visit: europeanmoneyquiz.eu
• Find the European Money Quiz coordinator in your country at: ebf.eu/europeanmoneyquiz/nationalcontactpoints/

MEDIA CONTACT:

Raymond Frenken, European Banking Federation
+32 2 496 52 59 47 or r.frenken@ebf.eu

ABOUT THE EBF:

The European Banking Federation is committed to a thriving European economy that is underpinned by a stable, secure and inclusive financial ecosystem, and to a flourishing society where financing is available to fund the dreams of citizens, businesses and innovators everywhere. The EBF serves as the voice of the European banking sector, bringing together 32 national banking associations in Europe that together represent some 3,500 banks – large and small, wholesale and retail, local and international.