Financial education: the advisor’s new role between school, family and artificial intelligence

Financial education has become part of civic education, while artificial intelligence is changing the way we look for information and make decisions. For advisors, a broader responsibility is opening up: helping people understand, supporting dialogue between generations and contributing to the education of young people. But professional experience and a certificate alone are not enough to make an educator.

In 2019 we asked ourselves when financial advisors would enter schools in the role of educators. In 2026 that question is still relevant, but it calls for a different perspective. The issue concerns the quality of teaching, the skills of those who propose it and the relationship between knowledge, independence and trust. In the meantime, the context has changed too. Alongside digital banking, investment platforms and robo-advisors, generative artificial intelligence has arrived: a tool capable of explaining a bond, comparing financial concepts and producing apparently authoritative answers in a matter of seconds.

Having more information, however, does not mean making better decisions. The new financial fragility also lies in believing we have understood something simply because we have received a simple, immediate and convincing answer.

School has a new framework: now concrete pathways are needed

Italy has taken an important step. Law No. 21 of 5 March 2024 has brought financial, insurance and pension education into the framework of civic education. The new 2024 ministerial guidelines develop its content for both the first and second cycles of schooling. Financial education is therefore no longer merely a hope left to the willingness of individual schools.

A regulatory framework, however, does not automatically create competence. Trained teachers, understandable materials, continuity and activities suited to the students’ age are needed.

In primary school, one can start with the difference between needs and wants, the value of work, managing a small amount of money and the choice to give something up today in order to achieve a goal tomorrow. Later on, interest, inflation, credit, insurance, pensions and risk can be introduced.

The aim should not be to turn children into investors too early. It should be to prepare them for the decisions they will face in life: reading a contract, assessing an instalment, recognising an unrealistic promise, understanding the cost of a loan.

This is where financial education meets the most concrete meaning of civic education: enabling people to exercise their rights, take responsibility and take part in society without being entirely dependent on other people’s explanations.

Looking to Asia, without building an imaginary model

Asian experiences offer useful insights, as long as they are described accurately. An OECD report documents in China economic and financial content integrated into other subjects, including in primary school, together with programmes developed at local level. It is therefore excessive to describe the whole country as a system in which all children study a stand-alone financial subject from a certain age onward.

In Hong Kong, the Investor and Financial Education Council runs programmes for primary school pupils, with interactive activities on money management and initiatives involving schools.

The useful lesson for Italy is the early start of learning, together with its continuity. Talking about money through everyday situations makes it possible to gradually build a way of reasoning. Waiting for the first salary, the first mortgage or the first financial loss means intervening when certain habits are already entrenched.

Financial educators: the value of a qualification is measured by the ability to teach

In Italy, a training offer for financial educators is taking shape, with associations, courses, certificates and registers. AIEF, for example, offers a training programme and its own register; in September 2025 it announced a partnership with CEPAS for skills certification.

These initiatives can help define methods, responsibilities and quality standards. It is, however, necessary to distinguish between a training certificate, an association-issued attestation and skills certification: they are tools with different meanings. Under Law No. 4 of 2013 on professions not organised into orders or colleges, association attestations do not constitute a necessary requirement to carry out the activity and do not grant skills reserved to other professions.

A diploma can document a path. The ability to educate must be demonstrated in the relationship with the learner.

Even an impressive résumé, or many years of experience, does not automatically guarantee this ability. A professional may know the markets perfectly and still struggle to explain compound interest to a teenager. They may know how to build a portfolio without being able to recognise the discomfort of someone who does not understand a word and does not dare ask questions.

Teaching requires technical expertise, educational preparation, listening and assessment of learning. Above all, it requires the willingness to measure one’s work by what the other person has understood and can use.

The advisor can contribute, if they recognise the limits of their role

Financial advisors have a wealth of experience that can be valuable to schools. They know the recurring mistakes of savers, emotional reactions to losses, confusion between return and safety, the consequences of debt and the difficulties of planning.

That experience can make a lesson concrete. To turn it into education, however, a shared project with teachers is needed, with clear objectives and verifiable content.

Neutrality must be visible: no product promotion, no collection of contacts for commercial purposes and no messages presenting an intermediary as the natural solution to the problems discussed. Any professional ties of the speaker must also be declared.

An advisor may carry out educational work, but they must make it clear when they are teaching general concepts and when they are providing their professional service. Confusing the two weakens trust in education.

The success of a lesson is measured by students’ ability to think, ask questions and recognise their own limits. It is a contribution that can also be offered free of charge, without gratuitousness replacing educational rigour.

In families, trust is not automatically passed on to heirs

Alongside school there is another decisive setting: the family. Here financial education takes on a double value. It increases the ability to understand wealth decisions and can create the conditions for a lasting professional relationship between the advisor and the new generations.

A client may have built a relationship of trust with their advisor over thirty years. Their children may barely know them, may already have another professional contact or may prefer different ways of relating. Some will look for a younger contact person; others will want a digital service, greater transparency on costs or more independence.

Wealth can be inherited. Trust must be earned by each generation.

For this reason, dialogue should begin before succession and before age or vulnerability make decision-making more difficult. With the client’s consent and in respect of confidentiality, opportunities can be created in which children and other family members understand the goals, constraints and reasons behind the choices made.

This is work that goes beyond presenting a portfolio. It means discussing the relationship between assets and income, the role of liquidity, life projects, pension provision and the consequences of property or business decisions. When legal, tax or inheritance issues arise, the advisor must recognise their limits and involve the relevant professionals.

Loyalty can be the result of this process. But it must arise from the usefulness perceived by family members and from their freedom of choice. Even the decision to turn to another advisor deserves respect.

A professional who helps children become informed interlocutors builds a stronger relationship precisely because they accept being judged.

Educational dialogue can go both ways

The family can support what is learned at school, and young people can bring new questions home. An exercise on a budget, on a purchase or on the cost of credit can open conversations that would not otherwise take place.

There is no need to ask parents to reveal income, debts or assets. Imaginary examples and everyday situations can be used, avoiding putting those with limited resources in difficulty.

The point is to create a common language. A young person can help an adult understand a digital service; the adult can explain to the young person the value of a reserve for unexpected events. No generation, by definition, possesses all the skills.

Artificial intelligence makes critical thinking even more necessary

AI can be a valuable teaching aid: it allows examples to be built, a family budget to be simulated and explanations of varying complexity to be proposed. Its use should also include verification exercises: what sources support an answer? Are the data up to date? What assumptions were used? What has been left out?

A smooth answer may contain errors or suggestions that are unsuitable for the situation of the person receiving it. ESMA has warned investors about the risks of guidance produced by public AI tools and the need not to rely on them alone for financial decisions.

Contemporary education must therefore also teach people to recognise manipulated content, promises of gain, fraudulent messages and suspicious requests. It must make people accustomed to protecting personal and financial data when using digital services.

For intermediaries too, technology leaves responsibilities unchanged: ESMA has made clear that the use of AI in investment services must comply with MiFID II obligations, including the duty to act in the client’s best interests.

For the advisor, this shift moves the value of the work towards the ability to interpret, verify and put things into context. The client may come to the meeting with an explanation already obtained from a chatbot. The professional must be able to discuss it, correct it when necessary and link it to the person’s real objectives.

More autonomy for people, more depth in advice

Document transparency and checks on intermediaries remain necessary. Their effectiveness also depends on the recipient’s ability to understand the information received, recognise a cost and ask a relevant question.

For this reason, financial education should accompany people throughout life: from school to the first work choices, from starting a family to retirement and generational transfer.

The advisor who chooses to contribute to this journey must be prepared to be challenged. A more knowledgeable client will ask more precise questions, compare alternatives and demand better explanations.

It is precisely this awareness that can give advice greater depth: a relationship in which trust grows together with understanding, and each new generation finds the reasons to build its own.