The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA), the Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) and the Association of Provident Funds (AOP) to provide over 150,000 staff, and members and committees of their provident funds with knowledge about financial and investment planning. The collaboration is part of SET's commitment to promote financial literacy among Thai people, particularly via "Happy Money" project.
SET President Pakorn Peetathawatchai said that SET aims to develop the capital market for the benefit of all parties and always places importance on promoting financial and investment skills for security in life through "Happy Money" project. Notably, SET has developed content, knowledge-sharing tools and activities useful for participating organizations to efficiently transfer the essential knowledge to employees so that they can change financial habits effectively and in a sustainable manner. The MoU will equip these organizations' personnel with ability to manage financial and investment to efficiently reach their financial goals and also make the Happy Money project accessible to the target group. Over three million provident fund members nationwide are among the project's target group.
EGAT Governor Boonyanit Wongrukmit said human resource is one of EGAT's most valuable assets, so it is necessary to takes good care of the staff and ensure they have good quality of life in all dimensions particularly financial security. This partnership with SET allows more than 17,000 staff members to receive financial advice from professionals and pushes towards EGAT's goals in enhancing financial knowledge in the workplace. Under the MoU, financial education and activities will be rolled out to motivate workforce to make the full contributions to provident fund and promote the appropriate investment to help them gain expected returns and achieve retirement savings goals.
PEA Governor Supachai Ek-un said that apart from being committed to its services, PEA values the quality of life of its staff and well realizes that financial health is crucial. The electricity provider has offered provident fund as financial welfare and security to about 28,000 employees for happy retirement, along with promotion of financial knowledge concerning financial and investment planning. This collaboration to enable knowledge sharing through online and offline media, and lectures, as well as financial mentor creation is the beginning of the efforts to keep the staff well-informed on financial planning so that they can manage their savings through the provident fund with understanding and have enough savings to allow them to live comfortably in life after retirement.
MEA Designated Governor Wilas Chaloeysat said that MEA prioritizes business operations and the development of the economy, society and environment towards sustainability particularly personnel development, especially, realizes particular significance of the development of basic financial knowledge and skills. This MoU with SET will enable both parties to collaboratively develop financial mentors to transfer knowledge to the utility provider's staff so that they know how to plan their spending wisely, manage debts and change to prudent financial habits. From now on, SET and MEA will disseminate financial knowledge to 7,634 MEA staff through the SET's learning media. This will truly benefit staff today and also later on with a happy retirement life while turning Thailand to savings society where people have sustainable financial happiness.
AOP President Thatchapol Kanchanakul said that AOP is the center of information that focuses on promoting and developing the operations of provident funds efficiently. Together with SET, we will jointly develop courses and produce e-learning media to be used to leverage knowledge and capabilities of provident fund's boards to enable members to properly manage their funds. The knowledge will be disseminated via the SET e-Learning system to benefit wider target groups. In addition, both SET and AOP will share knowledge about provident fund savings, through articles, clips and Infographic PVD Space, etc on online platform.
SET is committed to being a center to promote basic financial literacy and has continuously implemented the "Happy Money" project for over a decade. To-date, SET has been in cooperation with a total of 603 partners in the government sector including state enterprises, and in the private sector, and has created 9,011 financial mentors, by covering overall 3 million staff members of various organizations.
Organizations interested in promoting financial literacy in cooperation with SET, please find additional details at www.set.or.th/happymoney .