In cooperation with the Croatian Debate Society, the Croatian National Bank today organised the 9th Great Student Debate, held in the Round Hall in the Bank's main building. The members of the Croatian Debate Society discussed the topic "Can finfluencers help young people address their financial issues?". The debate was attended by more than 190 students and teachers from 18 schools from 15 Croatian cities: Čakovec, Dugo Selo, Bjelovar, Sisak, Krapina, Korenica, Hrvatska Kostajnica, Pazin, Split, Osijek, Ilok and Zagreb and from the islands of Rab, Lošinj and Vis, who asked questions and actively participated in the debate. The participants of the debate were addressed by the CNB Governor Boris Vujčić and Vicegovernor Bojan Fras, and the discussion was also joined by Toni Milun, a math teacher and financial vlogger.

The affirmative team, including Sven Divjak, Bruno Grbac and Lana Srića, held the opinion that finfluencing could provide young people with answers to their financial dilemmas and that any topic could be well-presented on any platform and in any format, if the person presenting it is an expert in the relevant field. The negative team, consisting of Marin Bolanča, Mila Krešić and Nela Damić, were of the opinion that finances were too important and serious a topic for young people to make their decisions only following the advice of finfluencers, because neither the truthfulness nor impartiality of their online content could be easily verified. Both teams discussed the scope of influence of influencers and whether young people followed them because of the content or trend, as well as whether there was an alternative to this increasingly popular form of information transfer.

The debate was moderated by the Greek and Latin language teacher Petar Soldo, who is also the president of the State Commission for the Debate Competition. With his questions he encouraged both teams to further reflect on and explain their views and actively involved students from the audience, who contributed to the quality of the discussion with their comments and additional questions.

At the beginning of the debate 74 percent of the students stated that they believed that the content offered by finfluencers could help make financial decisions, but after the discussion of the teams, and of all present students, the final position of the majority changed. At the end of the debate, as much as 66 percent of students agreed with the thesis that the content offered by finfluencers should not be used in financial decision-making, i.e. the debate showed that most of the audience believed that online content should be accompanied by a conversation with family and experts. Quite a lot of attendees emphasized that the subject of financial literacy should be part of the school curriculum.

"Every year it is a challenge is to find topics that are related to finances and our scope of work and occupations, but that are still interesting, clear and important for young people. This year, the topic of the debate is influencers, or 'finfluencers', and their impact on making, primarily, financial decisions. Although such a content is mainly intended for young generations, it can affect all of us, regardless of the age group we belong to. Given the growing influence of influencers, especially in the lives of young people, we believe that this is an important topic to be discussed," said Governor Vujčić welcoming the participants of the debate.

"In the Money Week in which the Great Student Debate is held we put financial education and the importance of personal finance management at the forefront, and each year we specifically deal with one topic. This year's topic is 'Can finfluencers help young people address their financial issues?', which is in line with the global motto 'Think before you follow, wise money tomorrow'. The debate participants, members of the Croatian Debate Society will, with the help of the audience, question who financial influencers are and how much their content affects financial literacy. Influencers have become part of everyday life and it is necessary to talk about the extent to which the messages that reach us through these channels affect our financial decisions," said Bojan Fras, Vicegovernor of the CNB.

The great student debate is the central activity of the Croatian National Bank to mark World Money Week and its goal is to promote financial literacy.