There are three counters with a variety of coffee beans, milk and sugar. There is a purchase manager at each counter who is assigned the task of procuring the best coffee, sugar and milk for their respective outlets at reasonable rates. Only that the purchase manager is not in his mid-20 s, but is a teen and the outlet is located in the finance and maths laboratory in a school.

With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) releasing financial literacy material earlier this year to increase the pace of financial inclusion in India and with countries like the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia making personal finance classes mandatory for children , there is a growing demand for personal finance and BFSI (banking, finance, services and insurance) courses. IT training companies and startups are already offering courses for professionals, college and school students.

Money Wizards, a city based startup that specializes in personal finance training for school and college students will soon be launching a learning management systems model (a software application for e-learning ) as well as another online personal finance course on the lines of MOOC (massive open online course).

"Right now, our instructors visit many campuses to train students (classes three to 10). Alternatively, we also train teachers, who in turn teach students on various aspects of personal finance," Venkatesh Varadachari, co-founder and director, Money Wizards, said. "While 40% of the course is taught in the games and activity format and workbook accounting for the remainder, moving forward, we are looking to make 80% of the learning through the experiential format and for that, an e-learning platform would be crucial. It would also help us scale up our operations," he said.

The company, which has developed over 100 games (board and card format) in the last two years, has 20 schools and 2,500 students opting for the personal finance course in India while in Singapore, the company is offering its courses across six schools with 330 students opting for it.


Keywords: coffee beans, milk ,sugar, purchase manager, Reserve Bank ,RBI, financial literacy ,personal finance,BFSI,banking, finance, services , insurance, school,college students, MOOC , workbook , company,Business news