Regions Bank is launching education programs to coincide with Financial Literacy Month in April.The effort, announced in a Monday (March 25) press release, will include online seminars, events at branches and chances for consumers to get free personalized advice for creating and monitoring financial goals through the Regions Greenprint experience.“For Regions, it’s a back-to-basics approach that blends personalized service with practical technology, meaning individualized plans, sound advice, and convenient access to tools and resources — something also highlighted in new advertisements that display Regions’ commitment to helping people through building financial confidence,” the release said.The offerings include webinars that are part of Regions Next Step, the bank’s year-round, no-cost financial wellness platform, and will feature Investopedia Editor-in-Chief Caleb Silver alongside Hilarey Gould, editorial director of The Balance.Meanwhile, Greenprint offers free, personalized plans to consumers to help them plan their financial goals.“Working with a Regions banker, customers build a plan focused on the goals they set, supported along the way by personalized data and guidance, digital and in-person touchpoints, smart product solutions, and more,” the release said.PYMNTS examined the need for proper financial literacy last year through the lens of buy now, pay later (BNPL) programs, noting that “the fact that only 23% of consumers with low credit scores reported using BNPL and less than 20% used it specifically to improve their credit scores underscores a knowledge gap.”Closing that gap, the report said, will require better education and increased awareness among consumers with low credit scores about the potential advantages of using credit products to improve their credit status.“FinTechs and financial product vendors must lead the charge, exploring effective ways to connect with consumers having low credit scores with user-friendly materials and education on credit building to ease their path to financial stability,” PYMNTS wrote.Additional research by PYMNTS shows that nearly 50% of high-debt consumers facing credit score issues have already embraced credit building tools in the past year, compared to only 7% of consumers without such issues.Last year, Regions Bank teamed with credit-building platform Self Financial to help Region’s consumer banking customers in building credit and improving their financial health. The collaboration lets consumers have their rent, cellphone and utility payments reported to the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.“We were drawn to work with Regions because of our shared commitment to working toward financial inclusion,” Self Financial Chief Strategy Officer Chris LaConte said in a news release. “Working with Regions enables us to support more consumers who either are new to establishing credit, or they’re in need of solutions that reflect how they’re already responsibly managing bills and other payments.”

Most consumers are dealing with some level of debt.Only 17% of U.S. consumers carry no debt, according to “The Credit Accessibility Series: Economic Malaise Exacerbating U.S. Consumer Debt Levels,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Sezzle collaboration.Among the rest of the population, 50% of consumers have outstanding debt balances of less than $250,000, while 33% have “high debt” of at least $250,000, the report found.Consumers are managing this debt in several ways, and financial services providers can give them a hand.For example, during a panel discussion hosted by PYMNTS’ Karen Webster and posted in October, PSCU President and CEO Chuck Fagan said he has found that some consumers are familiar with and comfortable with gamification.“So, in a lot of the digital mobile banking platforms now, we’re seeing an ability to customize a budgeting system to send you reminders when you hit a certain level of spending during a month, manage based on the balances in your share account,” Fagan said. “Using tools like that, where they’re very comfortable, I think, is providing some support now.”Sezzle is helping consumers with an education platform, a credit builder and an upcoming tool that rewards those who make payments on time, Sezzle CEO Charlie Youakim said during the same panel discussion.“We’re doing things within Sezzle, upcoming launches of products to incentivize on-time payments,” Youakim said. “It’s called ‘Payment Streaks,’ where basically, if you keep hitting payment timing on time, you’re going to get rewards within Sezzle itself — so, teaching that right behavior of making sure that you’re not tripping on payments.”Self Financial also has a strategy that incentivizes consumers to develop good habits and rewards them for doing so, CEO James Garvey said during the panel discussion.The company has a program in which consumers can progress from a secured credit card to a partially secured one, and then to an unsecured one by paying on time for each of the cards they have along that pathway.“Ultimately, for the consumer, these are the kind of habits they need to have: making on-time payments, spending responsibly, showing utilization and keeping that utilization down,” Garvey said

Regions Bank partnered with Self Financial Inc. to allow its customers to improve their financial health and credit.