ĠEMMA within the Ministry for Social Justice and Solidarity, the Family and Children’s Rights Teams up with the Chamber of SMES for the provision of financial capability coaching to self employed persons and small business owners
Being self-employed definitely has its advantages – for one, you are your own boss. Yet you are also likely to face money management challenges due a lower financial capability knowledge.
The national strategy on financial capability identified self employed persons as a vulnerable group. This stems from a number of reasons – which include:
- Difficulties in separate business and family expenses.
- Knowledge on tax and social security contributions administration.
- Strong perception that the social security contribution is a tax.
- Planning for retirement.
- Managing bank administration and planning for investment and growth.
ĠEMMA, the government’s financial capability platform hosted within the Office of the Permanent Secretary at MSFC is teaming up with the Chamber of SMEs to introduce a programme directed towards self employed and small business owners to coach them on financial capability matters.
This is the seventh Memorandum of Understanding that the Ministry has entered into with important stakeholders for the inculcation of financial capability – the others being the Central Bank of Malta, the University of Malta, BOV, MSV Life, the General Workers Union and the eSkills Malta Foundation.
Mr Mark Musu, the Permanent Secretary at MFCS, stated that “we approached the Chamber of SMEs to see whether together we can adopt this concept for the provision of financial capability coaching to self employed persons. To us, self employed persons are considered to be a vulnerable group” so that a coaching programme is jointly embarked upon “to increase financial capability of self employed persons”.
Click here to read Mr Mark Musu’s, the Permanent Secretary at MFCS, speech.
Dr Michael Falzon, the responsible minister, underlined that “I am pleased to announce that as a result of the Government’s collaboration with the Central Bank of Malta, over nine financial education videos are completed and will be disseminated through social media. These videos, which can also be found on gemma.gov.mt, continue to add to the wealth of education and knowledge resources we have built on financial capability. I thank the Governor of the Central Bank of Malta for partnering with my Ministry on this important initiative and I look forward to further collaboration.”
Click here to read Dr Michael Falzon’s, the responsible minister, speech.
Dr Falzon emphasised that this Memorandum of Understanding with the Chamber of SMEs is one other important initiative that we as a government have embarked upon to further improve the level of financial capability in Malta.
The Ministry’s financial capability platform can be viewed at www.gemma.gov.mt.
