Bessent ties effort to childhood poverty experience
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday pitched a financial literacy campaign to finance ministers from the world’s largest economies, announcing U.S. sponsorship for a new competition as he hosted his counterparts at a G20 meeting in Asheville, North Carolina.
Bessent said the effort was driven in part by his own experience with poverty as a child. He suggested an investment account program begun under President Donald Trump as a model for the financial literacy campaign he is promoting to the Group of 20.
The competition, called the Financial Literacy Solutions Sprint, is intended to discover and showcase “innovative technology- and data-enabled solutions” developed across G20 countries to strengthen financial literacy, Bessent said.
The contest will narrow submissions to four finalists, who will be pared to one or two winning teams. The winners will be recognized during the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in October in Bangkok.
Bessent is hosting the G20 finance ministers at the North Carolina gathering.