Visa concludes successful financial literacy campaign in Jordan

The official launch of the campaign took place at the Dar Al Anda Gallery on June 30th 2007.

The event was attended by representatives from Visa's member banks in Jordan, business professionals, the press corps and other prominent figures in society. Following the campaign's launch, Visa published the first of its Financial Literacy Campaign's educational cartoon series on Friday September 28th 2007 in the Al Waseet newspaper. This one-month 8-part cartoon series featured the 4 Fahman Family characters created by Abu Mahjoob Creative Productions and over a period of 4 weeks it was published in all daily newspapers.

As part of this Kingdom-wide initiative, Visa also launched an SMS competition, on October 1st 2007. This 1-month competition was powered by Beecell and targeted Zain subscribers offering a new question every day about Visa via SMS on 96040. Contestants were asked to answer questions such as: "Would you disclose more personal information if you used (a) a cheque or (b) a bank card?", or "Do you pay interest on purchases made using a debit cards?" With each correct response participants made throughout the campaign's duration, they increased their chances to win fantastic prizes including 24 state of the art digital appliances, audio systems, TVs, microwaves and ovens. Reflecting a wide participation rate, the competition received response of over 20,000 SMS messages.

The literacy campaign will be concluded via a grand celebratory event hosted at Romero's Living Room. Attending the event were Country Manager of Visa in the Levant, Mr. Tony Gougassian, Head of Corporate Communication for North Africa and Levant Mr. Mohammed Touhami El Ouazzani, and other members of the Visa's management team.

During the event's proceedings, a raffle draw took place in which 2 attendees won 2 brand new TV sets.

Commenting on the important role that this campaign played in Jordan, Mr. Gougassian, said, "We at Visa strove to increase people's knowledge in the financial management field and to provide them with the tools they needed to effectively manage their personal funds. We succeeded in spreading our message using creative and innovative, yet easy to follow knowledge-spreading tools. We were proud to see our campaign attract so many people in Jordan as the high participation rates seen in our SMS competition serve to prove once again that Jordanian community members do foster sound financial management skills and that they are always wiling and eager to increase their knowledge in this field."

Mr. Gougassian also stated that this campaign is not the only means that Visa adopts to spread knowledge to communities across the region. He spoke of Visa's bilingual website ehsib.com. This website was launched two years ago to cater specifically to the Middle East region by addressing several issues such as those pertaining to maximizing the security, convenience aspects related to the use of bank services and cards.

"I would like to extend our gratitude to the campaign supporters and sponsors, namely Abu Mahjoob Creative Production, Zain, and Beecell." he added.

Saleh Al Sheikh Youssef, one of the prize winners of the SMS competition said: "I am very happy to have participated in this competition, indeed I found it was a great opportunity to gain knowledge about financial matters. I enjoyed answering the daily questions and would like thank Visa for the prize I won."

From his end commenting on the prize he had received, Abed Youssef said: "I would like to begin by thanking Visa on this interesting initiative that they launched. I found out about the competition through a broadcast SMS and decided to participate, little did I know that I would win this nice prize. I am looking forward to participating in future competitions by Visa".

Visa first launched its literacy program in the year 1996 as an initiative geared towards increasing people's knowledge in the financial field. The program is now being implemented in 16 countries and each of its editions is tailored to fit the needs of local communities it is introduced to.