Current accounts (basic, fee-paying, packaged). Savings accounts (instant access, fixed-term, regular savers). ISAs (cash, stocks-and-shares, lifetime, junior). Credit (credit cards, overdrafts, personal loans, car finance, BNPL). Mortgages — the basics of how they work, deposit requirements, fixed vs variable, the different types of survey, the role of solicitors. Insurance — contents, building, life, income protection, travel, the different ways insurance works as a financial product.
The pedagogy is understanding what each product is for and what its risks are, not pushing one over another. A learner who can read a financial product’s terms and decide whether it fits their situation has the core skill.
Tested by
- ASDAN Lifeskills Challenge
- ASDAN Personal and Social Development
- FS Maths L2 — Number (interest, percentage, ratio in financial-product context)
Cross-curriculum
- Independent Living — Personal admin (the operational side of running a bank account)
- Functional Maths — Number
- Employability — Rights, responsibilities, and pay (pension auto-enrolment is a financial product)
Suggested evidence types
- Comparison task — three current accounts side-by-side against the learner’s actual usage profile
- Reading task — a real bank’s terms-and-conditions for a credit card, with annotation
- Calculation task — total interest paid on a £5,000 loan over 3 years vs 5 years
- Mortgage scenario — given a salary, what could be borrowed; what deposit; what monthly payment
Note on advice
The strand teaches literacy — not advice. NEO does not provide financial advice. Where a learner has a real financial decision to make, signpost MoneyHelper (free government-backed guidance), Citizens Advice, or — for substantial decisions — a properly qualified independent financial adviser.