The writer is deputy editor of the Financial Times and chair of FT FLIC

This article is part of the FT Financial Literacy & Inclusion Campaign’s seasonal appeal. Until January 31 2026 the appeal is supported by lead partner Experian which is generously match-funding other donations

The year 1926 was a good one for publishing. The first edition of The Banker magazine rolled off the presses alongside Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Franz Kafka’s The Castle and AA Milne’s Winnie The Pooh.

It was also an important moment in the evolution of financial education, and books that advanced that cause, none more so than George S Clason’s acclaimed 1926 personal finance self-help book, The Richest Man in Babylon.

A growing public interest in money, and how to make it, had sprung from the general prosperity that accompanied the end of the first world war and the “Roaring Twenties” that followed. A period of widespread western optimism, born of social liberalisation and runaway economic growth, was underpinned by technological progress, such as the mass availability of electricity and cars. That in turn fuelled a consumer culture, made possible by financial innovations such as hire purchase, store credit and other forms of consumer borrowing.

Within a few years, of course, the US — and much of the world — was engulfed by the 1929 crash, as exuberance imploded and share prices, many inflated by debt-fuelled retail investors, collapsed.

But along the way, the public and the banks that had lent to them had learned a lot about the wonders and woes of mass market consumer finance. The democratisation of finance had begun.

The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel published in 1925, famously captured the monetary and materialistic ambition of the era. But it is Clason’s compendium of parables that has more explicit financial lessons to teach.

“Wealth, like a tree, grows from a tiny seed,” advises the wise and wealthy Arkad, the book’s eponymous Babylonian, who instructs a poor chariot-maker on the secrets of moneymaking. “The first copper you save is the seed from which your tree of wealth shall grow. The sooner you plant that seed the sooner shall the tree grow. And the more faithfully you nourish and water that tree with consistent savings, the sooner may you bask in contentment beneath its shade.”

Over the thousands of years since Babylon’s heyday, and the 100 years since The Richest Man in Babylon was published, the complexities of finance have multiplied beyond all recognition. Even basic banking has been transformed. For many retail customers, face-to-face contact with a banker is a quaint conceptual relic. The same is true of the way we interact with money: coins and notes are alien to many, replaced by digital payments and a range of apps that track our debts and investments.

Yet, the same principles of financial literacy that Clason taught in his book, and that the Roaring Twenties and 1929 crash taught in real life, still apply. Little in the way banks and their customers operate has changed fundamentally.

The hire purchase agreements and store cards of the 1920s are the credit cards and buy-now-pay-later accounts of the 2020s. People are still using borrowed money to invest in high-risk assets, from the stock market to crypto. Only the frictionless ease with which you can spend, borrow, gamble and invest makes money skills today ever more important, as does the likelihood that bank theft will involve cyber-scamming a payment, rather than holding up a teller.

Which is why the Financial Times Group, publisher of The Banker, is so passionate about the educational work of its charity arm, FLIC, or the FT Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign, to give it its full name.

FLIC, founded a little over four years ago, began with a mission to educate teenagers in the UK, using a modern mix of social media-style videos and thorough up-to-date written materials for teachers, and we’re now in close to 1,000 secondary schools nationwide.

In January, the FLIC website’s learning hub is adding a library of adult-focused financial literacy videos: in total, 70 bite-sized tips and explanations, covering everything from budgeting to bank loans.

FLIC has been to date predominantly focused on the UK, but we now have a number of partnerships with organisations elsewhere in the world. We’re particularly pleased to have embarked on a joint venture with education charity Pratham to take an adapted version of our programme into its training centres across India.

FLIC is not alone. A clutch of other charities operate in the area, and many banks now do excellent financial education work of their own, both via their websites and in schools.

Given the crucial role that finance plays in all our lives, and the long-term advantages that will come from having a populace that is better informed about how to spend, save and invest sustainably, the more financial education everyone gets, the better our chances of “basking in contentment” beneath Arkad’s tree of wealth.