Periscope
Plan for a rich future
ˇ§The study clearly shows that young people lacks the intelligence of financial management,ˇ¨ said John Bacon-Shone, director of the Social Sciences Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong. The centre did the survey, which was sponsored by EPS Company (Hong Kong) Limited, an electronic payment services operator.
The study also indicates young people aged over 18 on average have 1.94 credit cards each. And 40 per cent of the survey respondents said they relied on their families to subsidise their overspending habits.
Dr Bacon-Shone said the society was constantly changing, and young adults were confronting with more explicit and sophisticated problems including credit card usage and investment in the financial markets.
Yet simply ˇ§being youngˇ¨ is no longer a valid excuse for young people to be rash with their financial decisions. Dr Bacon-Shone said the young generation could obtain an abundant flow of information on the internet and could not deny their own responsibilities for financial management.
Although some young people have problems of managing their money to pay credit card bills or daily expenses, there are those who face difficulties in supporting their low-income families or repaying their student loans.
According to the Student Financial Assistance Agency, the number of loan default cases of non-means tested loan scheme was 4,836 in the academic year of 2004-2005 and 5,678 in 2005-2006. That was about 13 per cent of the total number of loan borrowers. A loan is considered default when the borrower fails to repay two or more consecutive quarterly installments.
The number of loan payment deferment because of further studies, financial hardship or serious illness was 2,097 and 1,158 cases respectively in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006.
Some students consider the loan interest rate high and they prefer not to use the government money. ˇ§Iˇ¦d rather borrow money from my relatives to avoid paying interest,ˇ¨ a year-one student Claudia Tsoi Lo-man, said.
Winnie Yau Ng Wai-lin, administrative assistant of the Dean of Studentsˇ¦ Office of the New Asia College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said some students applied to defer their tuition fee payment as their families could not make ends meet.
ˇ§Students may use the grants and loans to support their families rather than paying school fees,ˇ¨ Mrs Yau said. At present, the university tuition costs HK$42,100 a year.
