"Whanau want financial security and Maori businesses want to grow while maintaining majority control, so Maori need money in the bank and the first step in that journey is basic financial literacy," he says.
The university will be represented by Professor Diana Coben, director of the National Centre of Literacy and Numeracy for Adults, who also chairs the advisory group of the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income's national 2013 Financial Knowledge and Behaviour Survey.
Professor Coben says the university's historic ties with Maori and its work in the education sector and financial literacy will contribute to developing the group's education stream of work.
"No other university has our historic depth of relationships with Maori, nor the extensive body of research on Maori education needs and initiatives."