Now that billions will soon be released from last year’s record government bond, the financial sector – banks and insurers – is relaunching its ‘Club Beleg’ initiative to inform people about investing. To do this, it is once again calling on Kamal Kharmach, who is not only a comedian and TV producer, but also an entrepreneur and lecturer in business economics.
“The funds from the one-year government bond will soon be released (almost 22 billion euros, ed.) and then many Belgians will undoubtedly look for ways to reinvest this money,” the banking federation Febelfin and the insurance association Assuralia themselves stated in a press release.
“Saving and investing have never been so popular,” adds Febelfin spokesperson Isabelle Marchand. “Many people look to the financial sector for more knowledge and information. With ‘Club Beleg’ we want to help them in a very objective way to make the right choice, a choice that will be different for everyone.” The benefits as well as the risks and possible losses are discussed, the financial sector promises.
Kamal Kharmach – known from the TV program ‘Andermans zaken’ among other things – explains the principles of saving and investing in a series of videos that will be distributed via social media, using sandwiches. He talks about, among other things, term accounts and savings certificates, products that hardly attracted any interest a few years ago but are now very topical. These are products with which the banks hope to win back the billions that they saw flow away to the government bond last year.
According to a survey of over 2,000 Belgians commissioned by Febelfin, almost half of Belgians invest in financial products, apart from savings accounts. Supplementary pensions and investment funds are the most popular products. Young people show a specific interest in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
Those who do not invest say they do so because they do not have enough money (46 percent), do not have sufficient knowledge (39 percent) or are afraid of losing money (33 percent).