Irony and boasting are currently mixed in posts with the hashtag "Klarnakrediten" on Tiktok.

In upbeat videos, young people on the platform show their debts with the payment service provider Klarna, which enables purchases on account from online retailers.

The new shoes or the wireless headphones are bought quickly.

At first you don't want to know anything about paying.

Gregory Bruner

Editor in Business.

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In a survey by the Federal Statistical Office in 2018, under-25s who went to debt counseling had an average debt of 8,849 euros.

For one in four, the debt was due to uneconomical household management.

Various authorities consider it dangerous to glorify such levels of debt on social media.

The Rechnen Foundation, together with the direct bank Comdirect and the Stuttgart Stock Exchange, therefore launched the "Fiuse - Finance Yourself" project in 2020.

With this, the initiators want to impart financial knowledge to young people on an equal footing.

That is why young people between the ages of 16 and 25 are also on board to act as ambassadors.

They bring issues to their peers and, conversely, take issues back to the project for treatment.

The initiators want to address the young people mainly via social media - on the same channels that others use to flirt with debt.

Influencers - called "infiusers" - produce videos and short posts that are distributed on platforms such as Tiktok or YouTube.

The supporters include the author and mathematician Nick Klupak, who explains in Tiktok videos, for example, how the price of gold is calculated, or Silke Ladel, professor of mathematics and didactics at the Schwäbisch Gmünd University of Education.

Carry financial knowledge in schools too

But it shouldn’t stop with social media.

"We cooperate with schools to impart financial knowledge, especially in mathematics lessons, using specific examples," says Claudia Abjörnson, Executive Director of the Computing Foundation.

Handy use cases would include how loans work or what compound interest brings.

The digitization of schools, which has progressed during the pandemic, plays into the hands of the foundation.

“Now teachers can teach students financial content in the same way that teenagers would do it in real life: on their smartphone or tablet,” explains Abjörnson.

However, looking back into the classroom, she estimates that many teachers are going back to blackboard and chalk and digital skills are being lost.

Incidentally, this is also the case with cash: it is no longer suitable as a tool for conveying financial knowledge if it no longer exists in the reality of young people's lives.

Abjörnson says that either cards or, increasingly, cell phones are the preferred way of paying there.

This is exactly where a cooperation with the “Fabit” app should start.

It's basically a budget book.

In addition to simply entering income and expenses, she also gives tips on healthy household management.

With campaigns and challenges, users should be encouraged to save and avoid debt.

If there are already debts, the app gives advice on repayment and helps with communication with creditors.

Picking up young people in their reality of life

As part of the cooperation, Fiuse's educational videos will also be shown in the app.

Thus, housekeeping and financial knowledge are combined in one place.

The operators of the app are also in lively exchange with their users.

In conversations with the young people, topics arise quite naturally that are put on the agenda of the operators.

"We have noticed a great lack of knowledge among young people on very basic topics," explains Susanne Krehl, co-founder of the app.

"Particularly issues such as creditworthiness, which can be a major burden later in life, are unknown." Krehl also reports of extreme cases in which young people accumulate debts by unknowingly running three mobile phone contracts at the same time.

The users of the app can also communicate with each other.

Without being able to see each other's budget books, Fabit offers users a protected environment in which to ask questions about finances.

In a narrow circle, companions, so-called "buddies", can accompany you on your way to financial improvement.

The hope that lies in the joint approach is similar to that of the "Klarna debts": the amplification of an effect through positive signals from the social environment.

Except that in this case the path should not lead to debt counseling.