Financial Education

U.S. Bank Credit Wellness Center

In 2010, U.S. Bank introduced a new resource on usbank.com that helps consumers take control of their credit score, so that it can be an asset at important moments throughout their lives. Visitors to the U.S. Bank Credit Wellness Center will find:

• answers to common questions about credit.
• tools to help them make good decisions about their own credit.
• tips on how to protect their credit rating for a lifetime.

The interactive site offers credit education activities to consumers, including an online quiz to test their knowledge, videos about people in different financial situations and a simulator to illustrate how financial decisions can impact a credit score.

U.S. Bank of Bearville

Partnering with Build-A-Bear Workshop® through their virtual world of Bearville.com™ to reach the K-6 audience, U.S. Bank of Bearville encourages young citizens of Bearville™ to save and budget through interactive games and online activities. With similar features to our real life branches like ATMs, a vault, a welcome desk and teller counter, Bearville citizens can make virtual deposits and earn interest. Citizens of Bearville can also work as tellers at the bank to learn how to accurately count back change.

U.S. Bank is excited to announce that since its launch in September 2010, there have been more than 5.1 million CDs opened at the bank and $5.5 billion Bear Bills invested! In 2011 we expanded our partnership to include a new, interactive game designed to help young children identify coins and their value. The game also integrates true or false questions about basic financial concepts to broaden children’s financial literacy.

Junior Achievement

Each year, employees volunteer their time to local Junior Achievement (JA) initiatives. In 2010 alone, U.S. Bancorp employees participated in more than 550 educational seminars in elementary, middle and high schools, reaching more than 12,000 students. In addition to volunteer efforts, the U.S. Bancorp Foundation and U.S. Bank Community Affairs provided grant support totaling $472,000 to JA chapters across the United States.

Teach Children To Save

The fourteenth annual Teach Children to Save Day (TCTS) was a huge success. To mark the 2010 event, more than 900 U.S. Bancorp employees made presentations in schools throughout our markets to students in kindergarten through 12th grade. By the end of the day, more than 19,000 students learned how to make saving money a part of their lifestyle.

U.S. Bank Financial Scholars and EverFi

In May 2010, U.S. Bank established a partnership with EverFi, a company committed to helping young adults navigate today’s financial world by providing an interactive media platform to teach students core concepts of financial literacy. The partnership establishes the U.S. Bank Financial Scholars program in 27 high schools in San Diego, the Twin Cities and the San Francisco Bay area.

Using EverFi technology, U.S. Bank Financial Scholars takes students ages 17 to 22 on Web-based tours of topics ranging from the New York Stock Exchange to the pitfalls of bad credit and consumer fraud. Students go through a six-hour online training course and receive a certificate of completion when they pass all of their modules. Teachers can check on the progress of their students throughout all six modules, and U.S. Bank is there to assist teachers with accessing additional resources and training tools aimed at motivating students to make positive financial decisions.

U.S. Bank Economic Empowerment Program at California State University, Fullerton

During the 2010 Economic Forecast Conference, Richard Davis, Chairman, President and CEO of U.S. Bancorp, announced a five-year $500,000 grant for the establishment of a U.S. Bank Economic Empowerment Program.

The creation of the U.S. Bank Economic Empowerment Program, operated through Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Economic Education and the Small Business Development Center, will focus on financial literacy training for middle and high school teachers as well as providing technical assistance and training to help small business owners secure funding to start or grow their business. Additionally, it will implement financial education workshops and establish Individual Development Accounts (IDA) for low- and moderate-income students at Valadez Middle School in Placentia, California. The five-year goal is for participants to save money towards a post-secondary education.

The U.S. Bank Center for Economic Education at Dominican University

The mission of Dominican University’s highly successful Center for Economic Education has been to improve and expand the level of economic education provided to students from kindergarten through high school, in order to enable them to become effective participants in the economy. With a multimillion-dollar contribution, U.S. Bank and Dominican University look to further expand the scope of its mission to address adult financial literacy in the Chicagoland area.

The newly renamed U.S. Bank Center for Economic Education will focus on three main programs. The first is a formalized financial education training workshop for local elementary, middle and high school teachers. Led by economics professors at Dominican University, the goal will be to equip teachers with the skills they need to teach financial literacy and economics to their students. The second and third programs involve the creation of innovative youth and adult financial education materials and new methods for delivering financial education, including the development of practical tools for parents in an effort to provide age appropriate financial literacy to their children.