BY BRITTANY KHOO

A FRIEND was holding a supplementary credit card given by his parents. When the bill came one day, he assumed the outstanding charges on the card would simply be forwarded to the next month - and neglected to pay up.

Eventually, he found himself piled with accumulating interest and a snowballing debt that his parents refused to bail him out of.

The experience of this friend prompted Melissa Chua, Arefa Jadliwala, Deana Saechang and Ng Lingkai - final-year students at Nanyang Technological University's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information - to take up the cause of educating their peers on credit management.

'Instances of young people defaulting on credit payments have been on the rise,' says Ms Ng. 'This is due to materialism and an over-spending lifestyle advocated in the media today.'

To assess the situation, the team looked at statistics from Credit Bureau Singapore and conducted a survey. It found that while credit card sign-ups among young adults increased 39 per cent over the past year, almost 85 per cent of tertiary students were in the dark about what a credit report was.

'Our survey results were astounding,' says Ms Saechang. 'So we felt a youth-themed campaign would be a suitable and timely opportunity to bridge the gap between the interest in - but lack of knowledge about - credit.'

Ms Chua says: 'With the Monetary Authority of Singapore easing regulations on income requirements for credit card applications, we also see a possible rise in credit management problems among the young. If you don't know how to handle your finances prudently, you'll likely end up in dire straits.'

The team went on to make it its final-year university project, clinching a sponsorship from Citibank to launch 'Generation Clear' in November 2008. The bank paid for the printing costs of the campaign's advertising collateral, leaving the team free to plan and execute the project.

Before the launch, the team worked closely together on orchestrating the campaign for seven months. They planned four different channels - a youth ambassador hunt, video competition, campus outreach and a finale event - making sure that Generation Clear would reach out to as many as possible.

'What separated us from just another boring educational outreach was our interactive, tailored approach to the tertiary institutions,' says Ms Chua. 'We even got the campaign going by printing our faces on attention-grabbing postcards, which we distributed freely around campus.'

Generation Clear utilised digital media and social networking sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MSN, which are mainstream channels of entertainment and communication for the young generation today. This translated to speedier publicity, effectively bringing the project into the public eye.

For the campus outreach part of Generation Clear, the team had difficulty securing avenues and time slots to speak at, but eventually managed to win talk time and exhibition space at schools such as National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, the five polytechnics and even private institutions such as the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

'It was challenging coordinating all the activities and working with the various schools. At times, we were also misinterpreted,' says Ms Jadliwala. 'Some students thought we were promoting a credit card, but we were only advocating credit management tips.

'One thing we noticed, though, was that students across tertiary institutions - whether polytechnics or universities - all had about the same lack of credit knowledge.'

Generation Clear ended on March 21 with a finale event at Zouk, featuring youth performers and a fashion show starring the chosen Generation Clear ambassadors. The winners of the video competition were also revealed.

With an estimated impact on 40,000 young people, the team feels Generation Clear cannot be written off as superficial.

'A lot of blood and sweat went into this project,' says Ms Jadliwala. 'The campaign was structured to be educational and emphasis was placed at all times on credit management.'

Her team-mate Ms Saechang says: 'We hope to get an A for the project.'

This article was first published in The Business Times.