Financial GCSE is an extremely easy subject to gain an A* compared to other subjects. Just three papers, all multiple choice. This article will help you pass and gain an A* in Financial Literacy by telling you literally EVERYTHING you will need to know to for absolute success in this subject.
Firstly, Financial Literacy contains some questions which are extremely obvious. These questions are so easy, anyone would know the answer. Therefore, I will try to leave out the content you will know already so you only have to revise and learn the content you don’t know.
Unit 1a – Who’s Who? The different sources of financial advice and education
Financial Advisers
It kind of says it in the name. These are people that give advice to people about finance and IVA Pros & Cons such as taking out bank loans, pensions and insurance. There are three different type of financial advisers:
- Tied Adviser – This is someone that can only give financial advise or sell products to his/her company own company. This type of adviser are obliged to tell you they are tied and how much commission they are going to earn if you buy a service from them.
- Independent Advisers – These people have access to the whole market so can offer a broader and maybe better range of services than tied advisers. However, they may be more likely to offer you something that charges a higher commission so they earn more money. That is why independent advisers are obliged to tell you the amount of money they will earn from what they sell you.
- Multi-tied Advisers – These are between the above where they are tied to several providers but only to these.
So that’s Financial Advisers, three types and remember that because advisers are dealing with the public, they need good qualifications such as the ifs (School of Finance) which I will later go over or scroll to the bottom. Almost remember that a friend that advises you on buying a product or service is another financial adviser but usually, they are lying and showing off/exaggerating, so don’t trust them!
The Citizens Advice Bureau or ‘CAB’
The Citizens Advice Bureau helps people with money problems and other problems providing free help in all sorts of buildings such as prisons, hospitals, GP surgeries, town centres and colleges. The CAB is run by a charity with over 20,000 volunteers that are well trained in sorting out people’s problems such as housing, employment and the main problem nowadays, debt.
The Citizens Advice Bureau also provide helpful fact sheets for people to read. These fact sheets are on:
- Basic Debt Advice
- Bankruptcy
- Credit fact sheet
- Jargon buster fact sheet
- Negotiating with priority creditors
- Negotiating with non-priority creditors
- Sample debt letters
And that’s all you need to know on the Citizens Advice Bureau.
Debt Counselling
Credit is easy to get lots of people have got debts from credit cards and loans they can’t afford to pay back. The creditors that want their money back start sending angry letters and this makes people not know what to do: how to deal with the creditors and how to stop yourself going in debt to begin with.
Like we already know, the Citizen Advice Bureau is a great way of solving debt problems and is a good place for people in this situation to go to because they will meet a friendly trained person who can help them through their difficult stages of finance.
To control regulations banks have in giving people credit etc.. there is
The Financial Services Authority or ‘FSA’
The FSA basically is in charge of all the work done in financial institutions such as banks, insurance companies, financial advisers and so on. There job is to:
- maintain confidence in the financial system – if not, the whole system will collapse.
- protect customers from being sold bad products or mis-selling products that are not suitable for them.
- Give out information to make people more financial aware.
- Try to reduce financial crime such as forgery, money laundering and e-crime.
So the FSA keep all of finance secure, confident and running.
The Financial Ombudsman System or ‘FOS’
This was set up to settle disputes between consumers and financial firms to do with insurance, mortgages and savings. The FOS doesn’t take sides but simple tries to find a solution to the dispute. It is a free service to consumers. Consumers can go to the FOS if:
- After talking with the firm, the consumer is still unhappy.
- The firm hasn’t replied within 8 weeks and the consumer is not prepared to wait any longer.
The FOS want to try and put customers back in the financial position they were before things went wrong. However, if the FOS feel the firm had treated the customer fairly, they will tell the customer that.
The ifs School of Finance or ‘ifs’
The ifs School of Finance is a leading provider in offering financial education to workers in industry and to customers who want to equip themselves with life skills that will manage their finance. The ifs have a range of finance qualifications for those that work in banks, building societies, insurance companies or financial advisers.
The CeFA (certificate for financial advisers) and CeMAP (certificate in mortgage advice and practice) are qualifications for those who want to give general advice on general financial matters and mortgages.
The TCF (treating customers fairly) is a hot financial service that aims to encourage financial service providers to keep high standards in design of their services and in the handling with customer complaints.
Well done you’ve learnt Unit 1a Who’s Who!
