MoneySmart Week is dead

The federal government's Financial Literacy Australia board has discontinued the annual MoneySmart Week project, after just three years. A review released three weeks ago found this year's MoneySmart Week, held in the first week of September, fell short of expectations.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission owns the 'MoneySmart' brand and will now take complete control of all MoneySmart campaigns.

The project features in the FLA's strategic plan for 2014 - 2017, but making the decision to discontinue the project early is "welcome news" for the project's manager Rebecca Glenn.

"The news is welcome because ASIC has resources that Financial Literacy Australia doesn't," said Glenn.

"Their commitment to promoting MoneySmart is already year-round and they have budget to run campaigns."

Glenn, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Financial Literacy Australia, said the review of MoneySmart Week and an analysis of grant applications led to the decision.

"Through this [exercise] it became apparent that our real strengths, and indeed significant opportunities, lie in the B2B relationships we have."

Three weeks ago, Glenn said one of the difficulties for MoneySmart Week was its "call to action". The other problem was lack of a large advertising budget.

"Asking people to take the next step in their finances is akin to asking them to eat more broccoli; there are plenty of other, more compelling, distractions competing for their attention," she said at the time.

MoneySmart Week was never going to work, said finance industry consultant Steven Anderson.

"Financial literacy and information about managing money needs to be there all the time. Asking people to have a look at their finances during a specific week is never going to work.

 "There is real gap in the market right now for good independent information about what it all means," said Anderson.

MoneySmart Week was funded by twenty five sponsors, including ANZ and National Australia Bank. NAB held financial knowledge seminars for their employees in MoneySmart Week.

There were 300 events held nationwide in MoneySmart Week, attended by 15,000 people. Almost 25,000 hits were recorded on the MoneySmartWeek.org.au website in the three weeks around the start of September.