When Warren Ngan-Woo, aka Wazza, started his role as programme manager of Financial Wellbeing at Westpac New Zealand three years ago, he was excited to give back to the community. A banking industry employee for almost 20 years, with 11 spent at Westpac, Ngan-Woo is passionate about helping others and a big believer in the sharing of financial knowledge.

“I started off as a bank teller and worked my way through various roles at the bank in different locations across Auckland,” Ngan-Woo tells Acuity. “I've worked in the consumer retail space as a home lender, and as a business manager looking after personal customers.”

He’s also worked with Westpac’s business customers, from Tourism New Zealand and Coca-Cola, through to small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) or “self-made entrepreneurs” as he likes to call them.

When the opportunity arose to run Westpac New Zealand’s Managing Your Money workshops through workplaces, schools and community groups, the animated Kiwi was the perfect choice.

Financial education for all

Westpac’s financial literacy and financial education workshops are designed for everyone – whether they’re young, senior, Westpac staff or bank elsewhere. They’re also designed for working groups and member organisations such as CA ANZ, and members’ families.

Topics are designed around spending, budgeting and managing a mortgage, through to understanding KiwiSaver, insurance, powers of attorney, wills and buying your first home.

“We've also got six workshops across three different levels, so 18 hours’ worth of courses,” Ngan-Woo explains. “We’ve created this game called Stash the Cash, which I’m really proud of. We actually won an award for it last year. It’s a fun, fast card game. You start off with five cards in your hand – a mixture of defence cards and scam cards – and you have to scam each other.

“The funny thing is, people ask, ‘Why is the bank trying to teach me how to scam?’ but it’s about showing and talking about these stories out loud, because the actual stories are real customer stories that we’ve designed in partnership with our financial crime team and the game developer.”

Financial fitness

Ngan-Woo begins most of his working days doing Body Fit Training (BFT) with his partner early in the morning and is just as passionate about health and wellbeing as he is about financial literacy. “You’ve got to look after your body and your mind, so that you prepare yourself for the day. As they say, your health is your wealth,” he says.

And that’s important, as it’s an essential role helping others with their money journey. “That's how I like to frame it, around the learning outcomes when people come to these workshops,” he says.

“These programs are really designed to provide financial education for all. They just enable everyone to uplift their knowledge, to help people make good, better or informed decisions about their money.”