BECU is stirring up competition among local high school students with a new pilot program: an educational app that contains three financial literacy games.
The $10.6 billion, Tukwila, Wash.-based credit union is already well-versed in financial education through its various classroom-style financial literacy programs for local children, teens, college students and adults. The idea of adding a competitive gaming element to its high school program originated during a conversation between executives at BECU and Slalom Consulting, a Seattle-based management and technology consulting firm that has been providing services to the credit union for three years.
Slalom Consulting developed mLevel, a gaming application hosted on Microsoft Windows Azure, to boost knowledge among the customers and employees of its clients, said Justin Jarrett, a practice area lead for Slalom. For BECU, the first credit union to test mLevel, the app also presented an opportunity to enhance learning.
"We thought it would be a good way for us to reinforce the concepts we teach in class and help students retain information," said Tom Berquist, vice president of member strategies for BECU.
BECU introduced the three financial literacy games–Banking 101, Give Me Some Credit and Car Buying Basics–to 10 classes in four Seattle area high schools in late May. In the first week and a half, BECU and Slalom discovered students had played more than 6,100 games and saw a 160% increase in their game scores. Each game is points-based, 90 seconds long and contains 30 multiple choice and true-false questions.
"The BECU mLevel Challenge combines two topics that are meaningful to many high school students: competition and smartphones," Jarrett said. "Students love to compete, and as many parents know, they spend a lot of time with their smartphones."
"We've been hearing from teachers that students are definitely more engaged with it than they expected them to be," Berquist said. "Financial literacy is not the most entertaining topic, but the game makes it more interesting."
Students and teachers who participated in the pilot program have been asked to complete surveys to evaluate the new app. Berquist said if the results are positive, BECU plans to introduce the app to more high schools this fall and expand its content.
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Natasha Chilingerian
Natasha Chilingerian has been immersed in the credit union industry for over a decade. She first joined CU Times in 2011 as a freelance writer, and following a two-year hiatus from 2013-2015, during which time she served as a communications specialist for Xceed Financial Credit Union (now Kinecta Federal Credit Union), she re-joined the CU Times team full-time as managing editor. She was promoted to executive editor in 2019. In the earlier days of her career, Chilingerian focused on news and lifestyle journalism, serving as a writer and editor for numerous regional publications in Oregon, Louisiana, South Carolina and the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, she holds experience in marketing copywriting for companies in the finance and technology space. At CU Times, she covers People and Community news, cybersecurity, fintech partnerships, marketing, workplace culture, leadership, DEI, branch strategies, digital banking and more. She currently works remotely and splits her time between Southern California and Portland, Ore.
