San Francisco - April 14, 2003 - Visa USA announced today the results of its annual Financial Literacy for Youth Month survey, citing that 77 percent of adults surveyed said young people are learning money management skills in the "school of hard knocks." Additionally, an overwhelming majority (99 percent) said that these lessons should be learned before young adults graduate high school; and 52 percent favored kids learning the basics of money management as early as elementary school.

"It takes the combined efforts of parents, teachers, and mentors to give young adults a strong background in personal financial management, and we hope that more and more parents become aware of the resources at their fingertips," said Rosetta Jones, director, Visa USA. "Visa provides free lessons, games, and interactive calculators for parents, teachers and students through our online financial curriculum at www.practicalmoneyskills.com." Practical Money Skills for Life personal finance curriculum reaches more than 100,000 schools and 37 million students.

Additionally, 83 percent of adults surveyed said they are unaware of the resources available to help them teach children practical money skills and 42 percent of adults picked "a Web site with lessons and interactive games" as the most effective medium for teaching children and young adults money management skills over a videotape, audiotape, or book with the same features.

"Understanding how to manage money responsibly is one of life's most critical skills, and we agree with parents that the earlier we start teaching young adults the better," said Jones. "Visa USA has worked to provide a solid and compelling learning program for young people from pre-school through college."

More findings:

• Nearly half of adults (49 percent) said today's youth believe they are more likely to become millionaires by starring in a reality TV series than by learning how to budget and save wisely (36 percent).
  
• Six out of 10 high school parents (60 percent) said their child does not understand the term, "compounding interest."
  
• 59 percent of high school parents also said their child does not feel comfortable balancing a checkbook.
  
• 53 percent of all parents believe their oldest child's money management skills have improved since last year.

Visa surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults on March 22-23, 2003 with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.

Additional components of Visa's ongoing campaign to enhance personal financial literacy:

• In an effort to increase the financial literacy of America's youth, Visa is sponsoring the Practical Money Skills for Life Educator Challenge. This contest will award teachers who creatively incorporate money management education in the classroom. Winning high school teachers and their classes will be announced in mid-April.
• Visa's Practical Money Skills for Life program (www.practicalmoneyskills.com) was developed by teachers for teachers. Working with our partners: Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, the National Consumers League, BigChalk, Lightspan.com, U.S. News and World Report Classroom Program, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators, this cutting-edge Internet-based personal finance curriculum reaches more than 100,000 schools and 37 million students. These financial literacy tools are available in English and Spanish.
• In addition to providing a free personal finance curriculum, Visa USA continues its efforts to bridge the digital divide by donating computer equipment to schools in need and providing training for teachers. During the 2002-03 school year, Visa USA expects to continue this program by donating computer labs to 10 high schools across the United States. To date, Visa has donated nearly 40 computer labs nationwide.
• Beyond a focus on educating high school students to be smart money managers, Visa USA has also partnered with the Reserve Officers Association to make available Practical Money Skills for Life resources to military families at installations across the U.S.

About Practical Money Skills for Life
The Practical Money Skills for Life curriculum is teacher tested and teacher approved. At the 2001 National Education Association Expo, the program was put before 500 teachers to evaluate and grade. Fully 99 percent of teachers who reviewed the site said they approve of the Practical Money Skills for Life program; 98 percent said they would recommend the site to other educators and 94 percent gave the program a "B" or better. Additionally, this program has received a "four star" rating from The Detroit Free Press and has been recognized by Teacher.com as a Teacher Information Network Gold Award winner, and is also the recipient of the prestigious Golden Web Award.

About Visa
Visa is the world's leading payment brand and largest consumer payment system, enabling banks to provide their consumer and merchant customers with a wide variety of payment alternatives. Nearly 21,000 financial institutions worldwide rely on Visa's processing system, VisaNet, to facilitate $2.4 trillion in annual transaction volume with virtually 100 percent reliability. Consumers in more than 150 countries carry more than one billion Visa-branded cards, accepted at millions of locations worldwide. Within the U.S., nearly 14,000 financial institutions issue more than 386 million Visa cards, accounting for $989 billion in annual transaction volume. Visa offers a trusted, reliable and convenient way to access and mobilize financial resources - anytime, anywhere, anyway. For more information about Visa, please visit www.visa.com.

# # #