Dr John Lee, Country CEO & CEO of Maybank Singapore,
Mdm Rahayu Buang, CEO, KidSTART Singapore Ltd,
KidSTART families and friends,
1 Good afternoon! Thank you for joining us here today. I am very privileged and happy to join you at the launch of Maybank KidSTART Saving Stars, here at KidsSTOP at Science Centre Singapore.
2 We have many parents who are here with us today. And as parents, we know it takes a lot of hard work and determination to achieve our dreams. We want to give our children a good start in life, and that is why we save for the future. Saving for the future and saving for a rainy day is an important value that we want to impart to our children at a very young age. Giving our children a good start in life is also KidSTART Singapore’s mission. For our children who are old enough, we want them to cultivate a good habit of saving regularly as part of their financial literacy. We also want them to build a positive attitude knowing that everyone can do something every day, little bit by little bit, working towards their dreams.
3 That is why I am delighted to hear about the Maybank KidSTART Saving Stars, a co-saving programme by Maybank Singapore and KidSTART, which aims to boost our families’ efforts to save for our children’s future. With just $10, you can kickstart a savings account for your children and watch the savings accumulate. Maybank Singapore will be topping up with $90, every three months. And at the end of six months, a total of $180 to help our KidSTART families. Our KidSTART families will also receive a dollar-for-dollar matching, up to $600, at the end of the six-month period.
4 We hope this programme can be a starting point to help parents teach children the importance of saving. And also work with our parents along the way to help accumulate savings, little by little, which will all be helpful in our children’s development. I am sure that through this co-savings programme, our children will soon recognise that small efforts and small amounts do eventually add up!
5 I wish to extend my sincere thanks to Maybank Singapore, who is a “Growing Together with KidSTART” partner, for initiating such a meaningful programme. This programme is also fully aligned with our Forward Singapore exercise, which looks at bringing in corporate partners to review and remake our social compact, so that all of us can chip in and work with one another to help each other out. Thank you, Maybank Singapore, for working with KidSTART, and for thinking and further exploring what other financial literacy programmes we can build together – perhaps also roping in young people across Singapore like students from Institutes of Higher Learning to teach the importance of financial literacy to more families and children. In this year of
Celebrating Social Service Partners, we want to recognise partners like Maybank who have displayed a strong community spirit to support our vision to give every child a good start in life!
6 There are many activities and exploration opportunities lined up today at KidsSTOP, so it is going to be a very meaningful day for our families. Not only with the launch of our Maybank Kidstart Saving Stars programme, but also lots of exciting activities for our families and children who are here with us today. I hope that the many experiences that you will come across today will inspire our parents and our children to dream big together. The sky is the limit and together, we will get there.
7 Thank you.