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Expand Your Financial Awareness with The Eastern Financial Academy (EFA)

National Financial Awareness Day August 14, 2021
By Satta Sarmah Hightower, May 20, 2021
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Building your knowledge of personal finance topics — from saving and budgeting to investing and debt management — can help you gain more control over your finances and improve your overall financial well-being.

But with so much information online, it can be hard to know where to turn for trusted and accurate information. This is one of the main reasons Eastern Bank has partnered with EverFi to power the Eastern Financial Academy (EFA), an online resource designed to help you build awareness of financial concepts and provide the information you need to make better financial decisions.

The Importance of Financial Awareness

Financial awareness and literacy are crucial to financial empowerment. They involve learning about money and how you can use it to achieve important financial goals.

However, recent research from the National Financial Educators Council (NFEC) shows that lack of financial literacy comes at a cost. The NFEC conducted a study that indicated financial illiteracy led to poor money management that cost American adults $1,634, on average, during 2020. Financial illiteracy can take shape in different ways, from not understanding how to improve your credit score or how high credit card interest rates affect your debt obligations to not knowing why it's important to get preapproved before applying for a mortgage or auto loan.

This is why it's crucial to leverage a trusted resource like the EFA to develop your financial knowledge and money management skills.

Build Your Financial Knowledge

Eastern Bank has partnered with EverFi, a third-party content provider that delivers digital financial education programs, to equip Eastern Bank customers and prospects with the necessary knowledge and skills to make better financial decisions and improve their financial health. The EFA offers an interactive learning environment designed to immerse you in these important topics, while offering an engaging learning experience.

The academy also aligns with our values and mission to do good things to help people prosper and to financially empower every person we serve — regardless of their background. The EFA offers more than 30 learning courses, available in both English and Spanish, some of which can be completed in as little as five minutes via desktop computer or mobile device — ensuring the site is inclusive and accessible to a range of community members.

This free resource is divided into six primary playlists:

  1. Financial Foundations
  2. Building Financial Capability
  3. Owning a Home
  4. College Planning
  5. Preparing for Retirement
  6. Small Business

In addition to these six regular playlists, Eastern Bank curates monthly and quarterly playlists that address specific financial concepts, topical areas of financial knowledge. Many of the topics build on each other to advance your financial knowledge and understanding of key personal finance topics.

If you've just begun your personal finance journey, it might be best to begin with the Financial Foundations playlist, which includes topics such as checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mobile and online banking, car loans, and more. This playlist is only 35 minutes long, and learning these topics will serve you well throughout your financial life.

While the EFA provides many resources for families and individuals, it can also serve as an invaluable resource for financial educators and community leaders. So often, people don't access the financial knowledge they need because they view it as too costly. They often think that if they can't afford to hire a financial planner or take an expensive online course or in-person seminar, they can't manage their money well.

However, the academy provides free tools and resources for people to access financial learning at their own pace. Financial educators and community leaders also can use these resources for events they may hold at local community centers or to supplement their own online education sessions.

Create Your Path to Financial Empowerment

Money shapes almost every aspect of our lives, from how much we can afford for our first home to the lifestyles we can achieve.

Learning about money and how you can use it to accomplish your goals is a critical life skill. Building your financial knowledge and ability to access accurate financial information from trusted sources takes time. The goal of the Eastern Financial Academy is to empower you with accurate financial information you can use to make smarter financial decisions. It's a valuable resource you can revisit again and again to build your financial literacy, achieve your short- and long-term financial goals, and chart a course for greater financial empowerment and well-being.

To start improving your financial literacy and wellness, visit the Eastern Financial Academy today!

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