GPW Foundation

According to the GPW Group’s CSR strategy, education is the foundation of the general public’s trust in the capital and commodity markets and their institutions. Hence, a key objective of the GPW Group is to foster a culture of investing while raising awareness of the mechanisms of capital and commodity markets in order to encourage Poles to invest their savings and urge companies to raise growth capital on the capital market.

THE GPW FOUNDATION

Education is a foundation of trust in the capital market and its participants. In pursuit of its mission, the Warsaw Stock Exchange has for years engaged in educational campaigns addressed to students, investors and professionals on the capital market. To amplify the reach and efficiency of their educational initiatives, the GPW Group companies established the GPW Foundation in May 2015.

Knowledgeable investors and participants of GPW markets equipped with the right tools create value, inspire trust and confidence.

The mission of the GPW Foundation is to develop and adapt the educational offer. The Foundation pursues its mission by organising and implementing school and educational projects for school and university students, investors, offering internships, supporting university students and graduates on the job market and supporting investors and professionals active on the financial and commodity markets.

The educational projects and initiatives implemented by the GPW Foundation in 2018 included:

Go4Poland - Wybierz Polskę! – a programme designed to seek talents among Polish students of foreign universities and to encourage them to work in Polish companies and institutions. In the Programme, the GPW Foundation works with businesses, institutions and student initiatives including student clubs and associations which promote returns of students to Poland to have a career in Polish companies and the public administration. The Programme is open to Polish students and graduates of universities around the world, including students participating in exchange programmes at foreign universities and Polish students from the Polish diaspora who are advanced speakers of Polish. Go4Poland-Wybierz Polskę! is a platform of communication for Polish students and graduates of foreign universities with companies and institutions which offer paid internships. The Foundation initiated the third round of the programme in 2018. The key part of the programme comprised of workshops and the final conference of the second edition took place in June 2018 while internships were offered from June to September 2018. 231 participants enrolled for the third edition of the programme and the conferences brought together 130 participants.
School visits to GPW – an online reservation system available on the GPW website allows teachers to manage bookings and confirm dates of school visits at their convenience. Visits include a presentation by a Foundation representative as well as a multimedia demo class for school students. As part of the project, around 8,700 school students in 240 groups visited GPW in 2017. The Foundation’s online database has registered nearly 600 teachers.
Product training – training offered at the GPW premises by the Foundation in partnership with brokers who are Exchange Members, addressed to existing and prospective investors and other interested parties. The training themes include GPW-listed financial instruments. Six product training sessions and an educational conference featuring financial bloggers were offered in 2018. In addition, exchange experts presented the exchange and listed instruments at scientific conferences organised by universities across Poland and for groups of students visiting GPW. The product training sessions and initiatives addressed to students reached approximately 1,800 participants.
Turbo Challenge Game – an educational competition organised in partnership with Nowe Usługi S.A., a partner of ING Bank NV, offering virtual investment of cash in exchange-listed ING Turbo certificates, equities and ETF units. The objective of the competition was to educate investors and to promote exchange-traded structured products. The competition had 1,741 enrolled contestants, the biggest number in history.
Online School Exchange Game (SIGG) – an educational project addressed to junior and senior high school students. The 16^th edition of the project was offered by GPW in partnership with the GPW Foundation and the Lesław A. Paga Foundation. SIGG is an online investment game. Students supervised by a teacher appoint teams of 2 to 4 participants. Each participating team has one investment account and a pool of virtual cash.The participants first learn about financial instruments traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (shares, ETFs, futures) and then jointly make virtual transactions in the account. The participants use virtual cash but their orders are executed based on actual buy and sell orders from the market. The goal of each time is to earn investment gains.

The game consists of three steps:

Step 1: trading in shares and ETFs;
Step 2: trading in futures;
Finals on the GPW Trading Floor (17 April 2018).

The 16^th edition of the project had more than 18 thousand participating students grouped in over 7 thousand teams supervised by 900 teachers.

Competition for PhD, MA and BA theses with awards from the President of the Warsaw Stock Exchange – in 2018, GPW opened a new edition of the competition for PhD, MA and BA theses about the capital market with awards from the President of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The programme encourages students to improve their knowledge about the capital market, its infrastructure institutions and modern financial instruments. The competition is open to authors of theses submitted for a degree in Poland from January to December of the previous calendar year. 73 theses (15 PhD theses, 29 MA theses and 29 BA theses) were entered in the competition. The winners of the competition were announced on 19 December 2018 at a gala on the GPW Trading Floor.
Summer Online Exchange School - The GPW Foundation in partnership with the Association of Exchange Investors (SIG) completed a new series of online training sessions of the Summer Online Exchange School. The training participants were 1,635 unique users. The project featured speakers from brokerage houses that are Exchange Members: Noble Securities, ING Securities, DM BOŚ, DM mBanku and DM PKO BP. The training sessions had between 92 and 268 participants.
Exchange School Academy – GPW in partnership with the GPW Foundation organised a series of film screenings related to capital markets and investing in 2018. Each screening was opened by a debate between a journalist and a special guest – expert in the field presented in the movie, as well as the expert’s presentation outlining and discussing the main themes of the film. The project was addressed to an audience interested in the capital market. Four screenings held from February to June 2018 brought together 200 viewers.
Niebanalnie o giełdzie – In the autumn of 2018, the GPW Foundation launched a new educational project addressed to teachers who teach subjects related to economics. To contribute to quality education in economics, the project aims to improve the skills of teachers of primary schools (grade 7 and 8) and secondary schools who teach subjects related to economics in order to develop knowledge about savings and investing and promote rational behaviour of young people, including a presentation of capital markets, investment instruments and their critical review, the Warsaw Stock Exchange, psychological factors driving investing and saving preferences, and the ability to rate investment risks. The project is national in scope and offered free of charge to participants.

As a part of the project, the GPW Foundation is planning 10 local training rounds (including 1 pilot) in 9 Polish cities in 2019 (each training round to include 3 lectures and methodology workshops), a national conference at GPW in Warsaw, a competition for a lesson plan about the capital market, production and publication of an educational video on the GPW Foundation website, and publication of lesson plans on the GPW Foundation website. The project will engage both teachers participating directly in training and all interested teachers who can access the publications.

The project is organised by the GPW Foundation in partnership with the Warsaw Stock Exchange and KDPW. The National Bank of Poland is a project partner under an economics educational programme. The project patrons include the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology, the Education Development Centre, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, as well as educational centres which will provide local training.

Financial Education and Entrepreneurship Congress - Initiated by four foundations: the Warsaw Institute for Banking (WIB), the GPW Foundation, the Lesław A. Paga Foundation and the THINK Knowledge Society Foundation, the second edition of the Financial Education and Entrepreneurship Congress took place at the PGE National Stadium in Warsaw on 15 March 2018. The event brought together 350 representatives of 100 financial, educational and training institutions and organisations. The event opened with a debate on challenges to financial education in Poland featuring speakers from the Ministry of Finance, the Social Security Institution (ZUS), the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the Polish Bank Association (ZBP). A panel discussion “Investing: Myths and Reality. What Do I Need to Know to Invest Better?” was organised on the initiative of the GPW Foundation. The Congress was accompanied by an exhibition venue, where the GPW Foundation put up an information stand to promote its projects and offer an educational competition for participants.
In 2018, GPW partnered with Dom Maklerski Noble Securities in the educational programme "#InwestStory", which included 14 meetings held across Poland for active exchange investors, beginners, and the academic community, bringing together around 700 participants.

EXCHANGE SCHOOL

A flagship educational programme arranged by GPW for many years, the Exchange School has been co-ordinated since 2016 by the GPW Foundation under the auspices of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. As part of the Exchange School, the GPW Foundation offers courses at two levels: “101 of Investing on the Exchange” and “Exchange for Intermediate Users”. Each course consists of 14 hours of lectures in 5 thematic modules. Courses are delivered by experienced academics and capital market practitioners.

101 of Investing on the Exchange
- Capital market and financial instruments
- How the Exchange works
- Impact of the economic environment on the Exchange
- Selecting and evaluating stocks
- Managing a portfolio of financial instruments
Exchange for Intermediate Users
- Impact of the economic environment on the Exchange
- How the Exchange works
- Derivatives and turbo certificates
- Fundamental analysis
- Technical analysis

In 2018, the GPW Foundation added the IPO course “Raising Capital on the Exchange” to the Exchange School programme. It is addressed to companies which are considering or working to go public. Training is customised to the needs of each company. The programme is addressed mainly to senior managers, chief accountants, CFOs and IR officers. Training is delivered by capital market experts with extensive experience with IPOs.

The Silesian University of Technology and the University of Warmia and Mazury joined the group of institutions which provide Exchange School programmes in 2018. A memorandum of understanding was signed with the University of Silesia to support promotional initiatives. The project involves 14 academic centres across Poland and the GPW Foundation is talking to another two institutions interested in joining the project.

We completed 20 courses (14 courses “101 of Investing on the Exchange”, 6 courses “Exchange for Intermediate Users”) with a total of 645 participants in 2018.

EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES ON THE COMMODITY MARKET

Towarowa Giełda Energii (TGE) also pursues educational initiatives addressed to market participants in order to develop and promote transparent trade in products offered by TGE and to raise the awareness of the benefits of trade on TGE. Such initiatives are addressed both to market participants and TGE members.

In 2018, TGE offered a series of training programmes and examinations for commodity exchange brokers. The programme prepares candidates for exchange brokers who represent exchange members in trading on TGE markets. Each training ends with an examination. Brokers who pass the exam and get certified are authorised to trade on behalf of exchange members. TGE offered 11 training sessions issued 87 certificates to brokers in 2018, including 25 brokers who passed the examination in English.

In 2018, TGE organised a training round for the Ministry of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Office where those institutions were introduced in detail to the operation of TGE.

TGE continued its partnership with universities. During the Energy Week, a project of the Energy Student Science Club at the Warsaw School of Economics, TGE was a conference partner and co-organiser of the workshop “The Role of the Gas Exchange in Poland and in the Region.” TGE was the partner of the debate “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Energy Prices but Were Afraid to Ask” held by the association Young Leaders in Energy.

In June 2018, TGE in partnership with Izba Rozliczeniowa Giełd Towarowych (IRGiT) organised the 11^th edition of the Trading Forum as a platform for the exchange of opinions and development of new solutions in collaboration with direct participants of the markets operated by TGE. The three-day event featured a discussion panel “Growth Potential of the Polish Gas Market”, presentations and integration activities.

In December 2018, TGE celebrated its 15^th anniversary as a licensed commodity exchange. On this occasion, TGE held a debate “Commodity Exchange Market in Europe: The Outlook” with the participation of TGE Members and representatives of supervisory authorities, European exchanges and the media.