Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation together with Association of Banks of Georgia and Georgian Banking Training Center held a workshop on savings behavior in Georgia on February 8, 2011 in Holiday Inn Hotel.
The workshop was conducted in the framework of the Savings Banks Foundation project Mobilization of Savings and Financial Capability in Azerbaijan and Georgia.
During the workshop invited foreign expert, Mr. Manfred Kodlin, a former CEO of a major German Savings Bank, made a presentation on importance of savings, while introducing different savings products available in Germany. Mr. Kodlin together with the guests discussed deposit insurance issues in Georgia and its potential influence on savings in Georgia.
Mr. Kodlin’s presentation was followed by the research company ACT Research presentation. Giorgi Okropiridze, project manager from ACT Research, together with Tinatin Rukhadze, ACT Group Director spoke about the results of quantitative survey on Savings Behavior Assessment in Georgia. 500 Georgian citizens were interviewed both from Tbilisi and various regions. The presentation showed the results of the survey, an assessment of the savings and spending behavior and the experience with financial institutions.
All workshop sessions were followed by vivid discussions among the guests – representatives of Georgian commercial banks, the National Bank of Georgia, Ministry of Finance, as well as the local director of the German Development Bank (KfW).
The Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation promotes the strengthening of the financial sector in Georgia in various ways for several years now. The current project was launched in October 2010 and its goal is to strengthen the mobilization of savings and to promote financial capability in Georgia. Savings Banks Foundation believes that it is necessary to empower financial institutions to offer adequate products for small-scale savers and to collect small amounts of savings in a cost-efficient manner. Besides adequate savings products various measures to enhance consumer’s ability to save should be taken. These range form increasing transparency in the sector to financial literacy measures.
The Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation is part of the Savings Banks Financial Group, Germany’s largest financial that successfully combines business success with a strong social mandate The mission of Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation (Sparkassenstiftung for internationale Kooperation) is to make the German Savings Banks experience accessible to similar financial institutions in other developing and transition countries. To this end, the Sparkassenstiftung provides state-of-the-art training and consulting services to its partner institutions around the globe.
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