BOV Club teaches Maltese students to budget before beer at Freshers’ Week

BOV Club turns University of Malta Freshers’ Week into a crash-course in financial adulthood
By [Author Name] | September 2024

SLIEMA, Malta – While first-year students queued for free pizza and faculty tote bags outside the University of Malta quadrangle this week, a longer line snaked toward a turquoise-coloured kiosk emblazoned with a single word: “BOVClub”. Inside, 18-year-olds who had never paid a utility bill in their lives were suddenly debating interest rates, budgeting apps and the real cost of a €1.50 daily pastizz on a five-year student loan.

Bank of Valletta’s youth arm has turned Freshers’ Week into a pop-up financial literacy boot-camp, handing out 3,000 “Money Smart Starter Packs” in four days and staging TikTok-friendly challenges such as “Build-a-Budget Bingo” and “Spin-the-Credit-Score”. By Thursday afternoon, more than 1,200 students had downloaded the BOV Club app, whose new “split-the-ġbejna” feature lets housemates divide grocery bills instantly—an upgrade inspired by last year’s student survey that found 68 % of flats in Msida and Gżira still use the “you-get-this-round” system.

“Maltese kids leave secondary school knowing Pythagoras but not how APR works,” laughed BOV financial-education officer Katya Camilleri, herself a 2020 UoM graduate. “We’re meeting them where they are—between the beer tent and the Għaqda tal-Malti stand—because that’s where the first mistakes happen.”

Local context matters. With rents in university catchments up 42 % since 2019 and inflation on food staples hitting 7 % this summer, students are borrowing earlier. Central Bank data show average student overdrafts have doubled to €1,850 in five years, while the National Statistics Office reports 28 % of Maltese 20-somethings still live with parents, many stalling independence for fear of insolvency.

Enter BOV Club’s three-step “Roadmap to €0” workshop:
1. Map your “nanna subsidies” (cash from relatives) honestly.
2. Tag every direct debit—Spotify, Netflix, that forgotten gym in Fgura—then cancel at least one.
3. Turn cultural habits into savings: walk the Sliema seafront instead of Uber, cook communal kawlata on Sundays and freeze portions.

“Last year I spent €18 a week on iced coffee at Café Berry,” confesses freshers’ rep Naomi Vella, 19, from Żurrieq. “The workshop showed me that’s €936 a year—basically my rent for a month in a shared San Ġwann flat.” Vella now runs a “Ħobż biż-żejt club” with course mates every Tuesday, pooling €2 each for ingredients rather than buying €5 sandwiches.

The initiative’s cultural nod is deliberate. Posters feature Maltese proverbs—“M’hemmx pranzu b’xejn, ħlief il-fenkata tal-Ġidrin”—re-framed to mean there’s no free lunch unless you budget for it. Spin-the-wheel prizes include traditional wicker “ħarufa” money boxes, merging nostalgia with nudge theory. Even the app’s colour palette borrows from the Maltese fishing-boat palette: turquoise for the sea, ochre for the limestone, red for the ever-present pastizzi box.

Community impact is already visible. Local grocer Mario Spiteri, whose family has run a corner shop in Msida since 1978, says BOV Club sticker charts on his noticeboard have cut student IOUs by half. “They used to say ‘ħa nħallas għada’ and never show up. Now they tap the phone and it’s done. I’ve even started giving 5 % discount if they pay before the 15th—my father would have fainted.”

Critics argue the bank is grooming lifelong customers under the guise of education. But Economics lecturer Dr. Stephanie Pace Ross insists the net gain outweighs cynicism. “If the first touch-point is responsible budgeting rather than a credit-card flyer slipped into a Fresher’s pack, we’re shifting norms. Maltese society still treats debt as shameful; transparency is half the battle.”

By Friday, BOV Club will pack up its turquoise kiosk, but the conversation is only starting. Students who completed all three workshops earn a “Money Smart” digital badge that doubles as priority points when applying for BOV’s Erasmus+ travel bursary—an incentive that last year funded 120 students to attend a fintech summit in Lisbon.

As the campus bell tower struck five, the queue was still 50-deep. One student clutched a laminated proverb given by organisers: “Min ma jaħdimx ma jiekolx—imma min ma jippjanax ma jiflaħx.” He who does not work shall not eat, but he who does not plan shall not cope. In a country where youth unemployment is under 5 % but household debt is among the EU’s highest, that Maltese twist might be the freshest takeaway of Fresers’ Week.