Building a better tomorrow through financial skills

Financial skills workshops

We hold free interactive financial lessons for schools, where we look at how to manage your personal finances and save and invest your money. Almost 20,000 pupils and students across Finland have already participated in these lessons. 

Comprehensive school 

We offer two different financial skills workshops for pupils in comprehensive school:

• Grades 1 through 4: The workshop deals with the prices of various products and services using a quiz format.
• Grades 5 through 9: The workshop deals with the cost of living using a quiz format. 

The aim is to teach children how to spend money in a manner that suits their lifestyle and to give them an understanding of the daily expenses of their family. 

Sign up your class for the spring 2025 free workshops for comprehensive schoolsOpens new window (registration only in Finnish).

Finance Hero game

In November 2018, Nordea launched the Finance Hero mobile game together with Economy and Youth TAT (nowadays Junior Achievement (JA) Finland) and the Finnish Foundation for Share Promotion. The game can be used by teachers as a tool for teaching financial skills during lessons or in various events. 

The Finance Hero game teaches young people to manage their finances and save and invest their money, and it’s also useful in teaching languages (Swedish, English, Finnish). It’s designed for 13–17-year-olds and free for everyone to play. Finance Hero works on all devices so anyone can join the game, and it’s played by tens of thousands of young people every year.

Play the gameOpens new window

Finance Hero competition

Every year we hold a Finance Hero team competition for 8th graders, which is based on the Finance Hero game. 

Registration for the competition in 2025 is now open! Take part in the competition with your class. 
Learn more about the Finance Hero competitionOpens new window

The winner of the 2024 Finance Hero competition was a team called Eläkesäästäjät from Pielisjoki School in Joensuu.
Read more about the 2024 Finance Hero competitionOpens new window

Partners: Junior Achievement (JA) Finland, Finnish Foundation for Share Promotion and Finance Finland.

Finance Hero Junior

Finance Hero Junior, the little sibling of Finance Hero, was launched in October 2021. The game has been created by Nordea in collaboration with Economy and Youth TAT (nowadays Junior Achievement (JA) Finland) and EcoFellows Ltd. 

Intended for primary school students, Finance Hero Junior is a mobile game featuring an imaginary cartoon world where children can safely learn financial skills. The players’ own choices with which they can influence their personal finances and environment, and well-being as a consequence, are a key part of the game. The free-to-play game is built on a story tailored to its age group and their circumstances, involving choices that impact sustainable development, the environment, well-being and the economy.

The game works on all devices free of charge, enabling anyone to join in.

Feedback from pupils:

“It’s great to learn financial skills from a game. I wanted to play all levels through at once!”

“The best thing about Finance Hero is work. You can develop everything a little bit in the game. The advice that we remember is: you should work.”

Play the gameOpens new window

Yrityskylä, in partnership with Junior Achievement Finland

Yrityskylä encourages 13–15-year-olds to learn about entrepreneurship and personal financial management, including investing and saving, by practicing their financial skills in simulated saving and business negotiations in which Nordea employees play the role of banker or other expert. Through the simulations, the participants also learn to cooperate better and take more initiative.

Nordea supports Yrityskylä in more than 10 locations, including by holding job interview exercises before the Yrityskylä Day when the young participants choose jobs for themselves.

Feedback on Yrityskylä:

“I learned that even if a product is cheap, you shouldn’t buy it just because you can.”

See how to sign up for Yrityskylä on the website of Junior Achievement FinlandOpens new window

The Spring idea competition in collaboration with the Children and Youth Foundation

Spring is an idea competition organised by the Children and Youth Foundation, inviting young people to come up with innovative solutions that will change the world. Spring is designed for young people aged 15–19 who enter the competition in teams of 3–5 people. To enter the competition, they need an idea that will boost young people’s confidence in the future; the idea can aim to solve a major global problem, address a local issue or create brand new opportunities. Spring wants to encourage young people to innovate and make an impact at school and in their free time. The first prize is a summer job and a study trip to Europe during which the team will work on turning their idea into a reality.

Nordea supports the Spring competition, for example, by hosting an idea event at the Nordea Campus on 15 January 2025 where more than 80 young people are expected to participate.

Spring is founded by some of the biggest names in business:  Matti Alahuhta, Sari Baldauf, Antti Herlin, Martti Hetemäki, Bengt Holmström and Jorma Ollila. During the competition, the young participants will work on their ideas with and be mentored by various top experts in their fields.

Read more about The Spring Idea CompetitionOpens new window

Preparing for adulthood

Personal finances course for young people, in partnership with Opopassi

Opopassi is a digital future planning tool that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Since 2018, it’s been available free of charge to all student counsellors and students at upper secondary schools. Opopassi aims to increase students’ self-awareness and their knowledge of entrepreneurship, the labour market and their personal finances and to help them to plan their further studies after school.

The content of Opopassi is determined by the curriculum of the OP2 student counselling course, which was adopted at upper secondary schools in autumn 2021. The themes laid out in the curriculum are managing personal finances, student financial aid and living. Nordea has created the personal finances course for young people on the Opopassi website.

Check out the course on the Opopassi websiteOpens new window (in Finnish)

Financial skills training in collaboration with Service Union United PAM

Nordea and Service Union United PAM have developed a financial skills training course for adults under 30. The training course deals with the basics of money management, saving and investing. In addition, the training provides advice on how to avoid financial difficulties.

In spring and autumn 2022, these courses were held in various locations across Finland.

In 2023, the courses will be offered as a webinar in which members of Service Union United PAM can participate.

Vamos financial skills project, in partnership with the Deaconess Foundation

The Vamos financial skills project aims at helping 16–29-year-olds manage their personal finances. Through the project, we encounter nearly 1,000 young people every year. The aim is to support young people in managing their daily spending, make it easier for them to manage their banking and other financial matters as well as to prevent serious financial problems and debt cycles.

Feedback from the participants:

“I got the feeling that it’s okay to talk about money and you can get help if you need it.”

“Things became a lot clearer and I feel more confident in managing my finances than I did before.”

“I felt I became a lot more aware of my personal finances and I finally got the courage to take a realistic look at my financial situation. I also started budgeting my monthly expenses and I aim to stick to this habit.”

More information on the project on the Vamos website.Opens new window

Our work with immigrants, in partnership with Plan International

We encounter immigrant young people and adults together with Plan International. We aim to support and assist them when they take their first steps in Finnish society and learn to find their way.

We help them learn financial and job skills through events and workshops, for instance. 

More information on Plan International’s activitiesOpens new window.