As part of World Savings Day, which falls on October 31, Standard Fundo de Pensões, a subsidiary of Standard Bank, recently held three lectures in Maputo, aimed at providing university students with important tools on savings and investments, using a complementary pension fund.

The initiative, which involved hundreds of students from the accounting and auditing, business management, accounting, economics and banking and financial management and accounting and taxation courses, took place separately at the University of São Tomás de Moçambique (USTM), the Higher Institute of Communication and Image (ISCIM) and the Higher Institute of Accounting and Auditing of Mozambique (ISCAM) and aimed to help students ensure security and a better quality of life in the future, particularly in retirement.

With regard to this social responsibility activity, Dércia Jamisse, fund administrator at Standard Fundo de Pensões, explained that it was a question of sharing with students the importance of a pension fund and the benefits it provides, because "we are close to World Savings Day, so we decided to bring an approach on the importance of saving through the Pension Fund as a benefit for retirement," she said.

The final-year students, he argued, will soon be exposed to job opportunities, which is why it is intended that they not only look at the monthly salary benefit, but also take into account the complementary social security benefits, as they effectively define the quality of life in the future.

The course coordinator at USTM's Faculty of Economic Sciences, Jesuína da Glória, said that the lecture's thematic approach gave the university's students a different dynamic: "You could see that they learned a lot from the lecture. We, as teachers, as trainers, have seen that there are new aspects that are worth embracing and we are sure that they will add value, as the students will be able to talk about savings, investments and pension funds with propriety," she said.

According to Raimundo Manuel from ISCIM's Communications Department, this higher education establishment wants to create a promising and secure future for its students, which is why it has sought to provide the conditions for them to learn about the need to invest in a supplementary pension fund in order to guarantee a decent retirement in the future.

Moments after attending the lecture, Zuleca Assamo, a student on the accounting and auditing course at ISCIM, expressed herself as follows: "I found it interesting how a pension fund works since, in addition to companies, it also opens up space for individuals to join and thus be able to take advantage of its benefits. It's an important instrument for improving quality of life, especially during retirement".

For his part, João Sega, a student on the accounting and auditing course at USTM, felt that the lecture was very productive in terms of the knowledge he acquired: "I'm talking about savings and the means to take into account in order to make the most of the money saved. Joining a pension fund is a good investment that allows us to have a better life in the future. It's an additional benefit to compulsory social security," he said.

Francisco Milice, a student on the accounting and taxation course at ISCAM, said that he had previously been unaware of the existence of the supplementary pension fund, which is optional: "It's a very important social security instrument, through which you can guarantee a good quality of life in retirement.

As an accounting student, the fund is extremely important because it addresses the issue of the value of money over time," he concluded.