Alumni of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, Venkatesh Varadachari and A Thillai Rajan are the co-founders of Money Wizards, a recently promoted (2011) financial literacy company that provides money management and finance education to school children, working adults, senior citizens, housewives and corporate employees. The main objective of the company is to simplify and demystify financial concepts and complex investment products to enable people to invest and manage their savings prudently.

Newspeg. Born out of the promoters’ conviction that money and finance education can never begin too soon, the company launched its money education programmes for schools in June 2012. Already 15 schools in Bangalore, Chennai and Singapore, affiliated with several examination boards including the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organisation, have signed up. The elementary, middle and high school (classes III-XII) study programme christened Money Champs has been designed by experienced academics and industry experts, with deep domain knowledge of economics and finance. Concepts related to money and finance are taught through colourfully illustrated work-books, specially designed games, role play and group activities. Schools can choose to offer these courses as part of the curriculum (fee: Rs.1,000 per child), or as an after-school programme (Rs.1,500 per child).

Direct talk. “Money Champs is a first-of-its-kind structured financial literacy programme for school children, designed to give them a solid foundation in finance, economics and business. The programme teaches children to understand the value of money, manage pocket money, implement savings and budgeting systems, shop wisely and understand basic banking and financial instruments such as the capital market, equity, debentures, government bonds etc,’’ says Varadachari.

Genesis. An engineering graduate of Madras University, IIM-Bangalore and the National University of Singapore, Varadachari began his career in India with US multinational Cargill in 1997, and after acquiring work experience in Singapore and the US for a decade, in 2011, he relocated to India and together with his IIM classmate Thillai Rajan, associate professor of finance at the department of management studies, IIT-Madras, co-founded Money Wizards. Raghunath Vijayaraghavan, an alumnus of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona, came aboard as vice president, business development in March this year. After conducting seven pilot summer camps for elementary and middle school children this summer, the trio was impressed by the children’s response to the programme.

Future plans. With a current headcount of 20 including 11 teachers, the company has chalked out a blueprint for signing up 50 schools and launching Money Champs in 50 colleges by the end of 2013. “We are not only looking to capture the pan-India market but will also roll out our programme in foreign countries where there is a demand for financial literacy,” says Vijayaraghavan.

With fraud, defalcation, cheating and crookery emerging as the country’s fastest-growing industry, Money Wizards deserves huge ballast.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Also read: What is financial literacy and why is it fundamental?