It’s time to knock out Dollarmites

Today I feel like a financial Rocky Balboa.

See, I’ve been fighting CommBank’s Dollarmites for 15 long years … and haven’t so much as landed a punch.

By rights, my trainer should have thrown in the towel and put me out of my misery.

After all, I’ve been fighting a $142 billion company, with 50,000 employees.

Yet I am the Italian Stallion (or the Barefoot Brawler?), so I kept on fighting!

And like all good cliched underdog stories, I’ve finally landed my first punch:

ASIC has officially launched an inquiry into school banking and is inviting public submissions.

Bam! Right on the kisser!

The deadline for entries is 31 October, so I’m busy writing a ‘knock-out’ submission.

Yet to do that, I need a favour from you.

I want your thoughts on Dollarmites. All you have to do is complete a two-minute survey on my website: barefootmoneymovement.org.au

I’ll include all reader responses as part of my submission.

Oh, and there’s one more thing.

While I’ve written War and Peace on Dollarmites, I’ve never actually seen it from the inside — that is, I’ve never run a Dollarmites school banking program.

How can I do a killer submission without having seen the other side of the coin?

Here’s the story: CommBank’s school banking program may reportedly be worth $10 billion to the bank, yet they’re such scrooges they don’t even pay people to run it!

Instead, the school has to rope in Adrian’s mum from Grade 2 to run the program as a volunteer.

Yes, Adrian’s mum is the bag lady for a bank that made $8,600 million in profits last year!

Well, Adrian’s mum, you can relax and get a mani pedi. I will personally volunteer to come to your school and run the program for a week.

(Disclaimer: I’m not giving away any stupid corporate-coloured toys and I’m not wearing a mascot suit, though I’m happy to teach your students and teachers my version of financial education.)

They’re on the ropes: it’s time to get the eye of the tiger!

So, Barefooters, head over to barefootmoneymovement.org.au and fill out the two-minute survey. (And if you want me to run your school’s Dollarmites program for a week, let me know that as well.)

Help me do it for Adrian!

Tread Your Own Path!