Going digital with guidance from youth ambassadors

Since 2009, the Council for Third Age (C3A) and POSB have worked together to educate seniors on financial literacy, reaching out to nearly 700,000 seniors.

 

Rapid growth of digital payments has brought about even greater importance in enriching the lives of seniors by helping them learn to bank digitally. To help empower seniors towards adopting digital banking, the National Silver Academy (NSA) and POSB jointly organised an Intergenerational Learning Programme (ILP) Workshop on Digital Banking on 3 June 2022 to support seniors who are keen to pick up these digital skills.

 

With 23 seniors participating in this onsite session, the workshop held at Dignity Kitchen Singapore was made possible through the support of POSB. 

 

During the three-hour session, the seniors were guided by POSB Digital Youth Ambassadors on how to use mobile payment applications such as POSB digibank and DBS PayLah! so that everyday banking can be done at their fingertips without having to go to the bank. To facilitate intergenerational interactions between the seniors and youths, the participants were split into smaller groups for easier communication.

 

By understanding the different functions of these apps, seniors discovered the convenience of accessing everyday banking services with ease, making digital payments and how to stay safe online. For example, seniors learnt how they could set up DBS PayLah! app to make everyday payments for transport, F&B, entertainment, retail expenses and bills.

 

An interesting aspect of the session involved giving seniors the opportunity to practise making real-time transactions at the social enterprise food court located next to the classroom, and this helped seniors to take their first step in embracing digital payments. For example, the seniors used the DBS PayLah! app to scan the merchant's QR Code to pay for their drinks.

 

72-year-old Mr Peter Koh said, “Being able to apply what we learnt in a setting that we find ourselves day-to-day is great, and we can check with our youth ambassador should we require assistance. Besides enabling us to embrace the cashless lifestyle, we also gained cyber safety tips, which has given me more confidence to go digital now. I plan to learn more digital skills in the future.”

 

A 77-year-old participant, Mdm Patricia Sin also shared, “We need to keep up with the times. This workshop is a perfect opportunity for us to upskill ourselves in our digital learning journey. The youth ambassador was very patient and knowledgeable. The knowledge I received from the ambassador has given me the motivation to use such mobile payment apps in future.”

 

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