Financial education – Prosper Canada Learning Hub

Financial literacy courses for Canadian students

Teachers may incorporate two gamified financial literacy courses that are currently freely available into their lessons.

Students can now access two age-appropriate courses designed to help boost students' financial knowledge and confidence at any stage of their financial journey.

Course titles:

Money Management Foundations* (Grades 6 - 12)
- Money Management and Budgeting
Money Management After High School* (Grades 9 - 12)
- Managing My Money After High School

Students will explore resources and tools on the FCAC website that they will be able to use well beyond high school.

*Students can earn a completion certificate issued by the FCAC and ChatterHigh!

Banking for newcomers to Canada

Banks offer extensive information on how newcomers to Canada can get started in their new country, including checklists, information, financial services and advice. Here is some basic information to get you started. A list of bank resources at the end of this article may also help with the financial transition to Canada.

The impact of COVID-19 on financial capability and asset building services.

The forced transition from in-person to online activities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on how families and communities buy groceries, acquire medical care, and utilize social services. This rapid shift has raised important questions about how to address access and equity. AFN and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Financial Security (CFS) conducted this study to better understand the transition to remote services among financial capability and asset building (FCAB) programs, which includes financial education, counseling, coaching, emergency assistance, benefits navigation, housing supports, workforce development, and other related services. The insights from this study can inform strategies for FCAB services going forward.

This brief reviews recommendations for funders and organizations seeking to learn from the financial capability service delivery models employed in the COVID-19 pandemic, especially related to replication of findings that lead to more equitable delivery practices, improved accessibility of services, and greater financial improvements for clients. Six region-specific briefs complement the national findings - Indiana, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

This brief is generously supported by JPMorgan Chase & Co., MetLife Foundation, and Wells Fargo.

If you missed the live webinar, watch the recording here.

OSC study finds many investors overestimate their knowledge

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) published the results of a survey assessing Canadian investors’ financial literacy. As individuals take on more responsibility for their own investing, it is essential that they have enough financial knowledge to effectively participate in Canada’s capital markets. Investors’ knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviours are all contributors to having a successful investing journey.

Crypto Quiz

Are you considering investing in crypto assets, but aren’t sure whether it’s right for you, legal or just a scam? Test your crypto knowledge and learn how to spot the warning signs of fraud using OSC's quiz.

Investment knowledge quiz

Most people know a little about investing, but they need to know more to be able to manage their investments to meet their goals. Try this quiz by the FCAC to see if your knowledge is basic or more advanced.

Start Your Investment Journey

Before you start investing, it is important to consider your budget and financial goals, and how much risk you are comfortable taking on. Like many things in life, investing comes with its own share of risks and rewards. You can do this on your own or with the help of an advisor.

Financial literacy around the world: insights from the S&P’s rating services global financial literacy survey

The Standard & Poor's Ratings Services Global Financial Literacy Survey is the world’s largest, most comprehensive global measurement of financial literacy. It probes knowledge of four basic financial concepts: risk diversification, inflation, numeracy, and interest compounding.

The survey is based on interviews with more than 150,000 adults in over 140 countries. In 2014 McGraw Hill Financial worked with Gallup, Inc., the World Bank Development Research Group, and GFLEC on the S&P Global FinLit Survey.

Empower U Evaluation Report

For a family living in poverty, every day is about making tough choices – to pay rent or buy groceries? Having the means to attain the basic necessities, is one thing. Having the skills, confidence and access to resources to manage finances in ways that build pathways out of poverty is something far different.

Thanks to the generosity of partners, supporters and donors of Empower U, families can move beyond just managing the day-to-day challenges of poverty. Participants in the program learn valuable money management skills and are given the means to build savings and assets to create financial stability. A future where they and their families can thrive.

Checking registration

Checking registration helps protect you from unqualified or fraudulent individuals. Always check the registration of any person or business trying to sell you an investment or give you investment advice by using the Canadian Securities Administrators’ National Registration Search.

Titles like financial advisor, financial planner, investment consultant, and investment specialist aren’t legally defined terms or official registration categories. Some advisers or dealers may have designations that allow them to use specific titles, such as Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) or Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Checking registration tells you what specific products and services they are (and aren’t) qualified to offer you, regardless of title.

Guidance on digital delivery of financial education

Innovative uses of digital technologies in the delivery of financial education can serve multiple complementary objectives and effectively support the building blocks of financial education. This Guidance was developed to assist policy makers in deciding when to adopt digital delivery, and how to effectively design and implement digital financial education initiatives, by offering non-binding actionable directions. It builds on the work undertaken by the OECD and its International Network on Financial Education, including the G20/OECD-INFE Policy Guidance Note on Digitalisation and Financial Literacy and international comparative analyses on how public authorities design, deliver and evaluate digital financial education initiatives, notably in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report on digital delivery of financial education design and practice builds on over 70 case studies from members of the OECD International Network on Financial Education, contributes to a better understanding of how public authorities worldwide are designing, delivering and evaluating digital financial education initiatives, and prepares forthcoming work on the development of high-level international guidance on the digital delivery of financial education.

Financial wellness tools

The National Disability Institute's Financial Wellness Toolkit is full of free resources for disability service providers, nonprofits, financial professionals and municipalities, including Financial Education Handouts and Quick Reference Guides.

This infographic highlights income, banking and credit inequality based on disability, race and ethnicity.

Behavioural bias checker

Being aware of potential biases can help you become a better decision-maker. Use this tool to improve your awareness of different behavioural biases or “blind spots” that may influence your decisions.

Municipal Toolkit: A toolkit for embedding financial empowerment supports into municipal services

Translated financial terms

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has developed resources to help multilingual communities and newcomers in a selection of languages. The translated financial terms are available in Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Tagalog.

This website has many other multi-lingual resources, covering a range of topics from opening a bank account, money transfers, money management, debt collection and many others. Some terms are US based but most are universal.

Scam spotter tool

Are you considering a new investment?

Use this tool to learn how to spot the warning signs of fraud, and to learn how to protect yourself from suspected scams.

Investor readiness quiz

Investing is an important part of planning for a financially secure future. It can battle the effects of inflation on your savings, grow your wealth, and provide sources of income in retirement. The sooner you invest, the longer compound interest can work to grow your savings exponentially. However, there are some important milestones to achieve and questions to consider before you start investing.

Are you ready to invest? Take this quiz to find out!

It’s time to get ready for taxes!

Intuit is committed to helping students across the country work towards a more prosperous financial future by equipping them with the education they need to feel confident about their taxes.

Through the Intuit TurboTax Simulation, we are helping students overcome the fear of Tax Day. You do not need to be an expert to teach taxes, and we recommend teaching to grade levels 9-12.

Helping low-income clients retire successfully- Free Course

Financial planners and advisors want to better the lives of the people they work with, but may not know that conventional retirement advice often doesn’t work for low-income retirees.

Getting it right when every dollar counts

The advice that works well for higher- and middle-income clients can work against lower-income retirees – meaning they lose out on government benefits and must live on less, even though every dollar counts when you’re living on a low income. That’s why there’s a new CE-accredited course available at no charge for anyone who wants to learn how to help low-income retirees plan for and make the most of their retirement income. Although the course was developed for financial advisors and planners, it is open and available to all.

Learn from seasoned experts

Based on the work of John Stapleton of Open Policy Ontario and developed by Certified Financial Planner professional Alexandra Macqueen, the course is hosted and was accredited by Business Career College, a We Know Training brand and a leader in training for the financial services and insurance industries.

The course includes:

● Accreditation for 5.5 CE credits with FP Canada, Advocis, and IIROC
● Working knowledge of the government benefits programs available to low-income retirees
● A look at the savings and investing options available to low-income retirees and how to optimize client situations
● Guidance about the impact of earned income and taxes on low-income retirees
● A series of case studies, plus recorded conversations with financial planners about how planning for low-income retirees works in practice

To take the course:

1. Go to www.businesscareercollege.com
2. Either sign in (if you have an account) or Sign Up (near the top right) to create a free account. You'll then have to "Create Learner Account."
3. Once logged in, there is a yellow button near the top right of the screen called "Enrolment Key." Click here and provide the Enrolment Key retiring-on-low-income-indigo-2771 (an exact copy and paste is probably ideal)

Learn about your taxes (free CRA online course)

A free online course to learn about personal income taxes in Canada, developed by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Contents include:

Starting to work: Why you need a social insurance number (SIN), when to fill out a TD1 form, and what’s on your pay stub and T4 slip.
Preparing to do your taxes: Find out what you’ll need to know before doing your taxes and the different ways to do them.
Completing a basic tax return: An introduction to a basic income tax and benefit return. What you need to report, how to claim deductions and tax credits, and finding out whether you will get a refund or owe tax.

Additional resources for teachers and facilitators are available.

Financial Coaching Initiative: Results and Lessons Learned

In 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launched the Financial Coaching Initiative, a pilot program that provided financial coaching services to veterans and economically vulnerable consumers. Professional coaches were embedded into 60 host sites across the country, where they provided free, one-on-one help to consumers to address their personal financial goals. A range of organizations served as host sites, such as one-stop career centers, social services organizations, and legal aid groups.

Over four years, the Financial Coaching Initiative served over 23,000 consumers, demonstrating that financial coaching can be successfully implemented at scale in many different settings for a wide range of consumers.

This report and summary brief describe the basic structure of the Initiative, present data about the program’s results, and summarize key lessons learned for practitioners and organizations interested in coaching.

Practitioner tools for navigating financial exchanges with family and friends

Financial educators are particularly aware of the prevalence of these types of financial arrangements – otherwise known as family financial exchanges (FFEs). To support practitioners helping clients through these often sensitive conversations about these arrangements, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released the Friends and Family Exchanges Toolkit , a four-part guide for coaching clients in asking for financial help or changing an existing agreement due to their own financial hardship.

CFPB Consumer Education Resources

Resources to provide consumers up-to-date information to protect and manage their finances during the coronavirus pandemic. Resources include:

mortgage and housing assistance
managing your finances
student loans
avoiding scams

And resources for specific audiences, including:

older adults & their families
parents & kids
people experiencing homelessness

Momentum’s Money Management Courses

The money management courses are offered online, on demand, for free. Learn at your own pace and on your own schedule on a variety of topics, including:

budgeting
credit
assets
banking
consumerism
education savings

Financial Education Affects Financial Knowledge and Downstream Behaviors

This study covers the rapidly growing literature on the causal effects of financial education programs in a meta-analysis of 76 randomized experiments with a total sample size of over 160,000 individuals. The evidence shows that financial education programs have, on average, positive causal treatment effects on financial knowledge and downstream financial behaviors. Treatment effects are economically meaningful in size, similar to those realized by educational interventions in other domains and are at least three times as large as the average effect documented in earlier work. These results are robust to the method used, restricting the sample to papers published in top economics journals, including only studies with adequate power, and accounting for publication selection bias in the literature. The study concludes with a discussion of the cost-effectiveness of financial education interventions.

GFLEC – Finlit Talks

This video series offers concise summaries of in-depth academic and practitioner presentations, in plain English, for dissemination to a worldwide audience. For convenient viewing, most videos are between three and six minutes long.

Financial Well-being among Black and Hispanic Women

This paper provides an in-depth examination of the financial well-being of Black and Hispanic women and the factors contributing to it, using the 2018 wave of the National Financial Capability Study. Differences between Black and Hispanic women versus White women are documented, in that the former are more likely to face economic challenges that depress financial well-being. Controlling for differences in socio-demographic characteristics, there are important differences in the factors that contribute to financial well-being for Black and Hispanic women compared to White women. This includes distinct impacts of education, family structure, employment, and financial literacy. Results imply that extant financial education programs inadequately address the needs of Black and Hispanic women.

Testing the use of the Mint app in an interactive personal finance module

To advance understanding of effective financial education methods, the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) conducted an experiment using Mint, a financial improvement tool offered by Intuit, whose financial products include TurboTax and QuickBooks. This study measures Mint’s effectiveness at improving students’ financial knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Students at the George Washington University participated in a half-day budgeting workshop and were exposed to either Mint, which is a real-time, automated platform, or Excel, which is an offline, static tool.

The authors found that participation in both workshops was associated with improved preparedness to have conversations about money matters with parents, a greater sense of financial autonomy, and an increased awareness of the importance of budgeting, but that participants in the Mint workshop were more likely to have a positive experience using the budgeting tool, to feel confident that they could achieve a financial goal, and to be engaged in budgeting one month after the workshop. Results show that even short financial education interventions can meaningfully influence students’ financial attitudes and behavior and that an interactive tool like Mint may have advantages over a more static tool like Excel.

2019 Financial Literacy Annual Report

The 2019 Financial Literacy Annual Report of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau highlights the Bureau’s Start Small, Save Up campaign, the Office of Financial Education’s foundational research, in conjunction with the Office of Older Americans, to understand the pathways to financial well-being, the Office of Servicemembers Affairs’ Misadventures in Money Management online training program, the Office of Older Americans’ Managing Someone Else’s Money guides, and the Office of Community Affairs’ Your Money, Your Goals toolkit, along with other direct to consumer tools, community outreach channels, and areas of research.

Connecting to Reimagine: Money & COVID-19 webinar series

This webinar series released by the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) features speakers from the public, private, and academic sectors.

Past and upcoming webinar topics include:

Navigating Retirement Security Through a Pandemic
Financial Literacy and Wellness Among Women
Financial Fragility During the Pandemic: The Path Forward
Optimizing National Strategies for Financial Education
Crafting Policies that Address Inequality in Saving, Wealth, and Economic Opportunities
Investor Knowledge and Behaviors in Times of Crisis
Increasing Financial Knowledge for Better Rebuilding
Designing an Inclusive Recovery
Millennials: Buttressing a Generation at Risk

National Strategies for Financial Education: OECD/INFE Policy Handbook

Financial education has become an important complement to market conduct and prudential regulation and improving individual financial behaviours a long-term policy priority in many countries. The OECD and its International Network on Financial Education (INFE) conducts research and develops tools to support policy makers and public authorities to design and implement national strategies for financial education.

This handbook provides an overview of the status of national strategies worldwide, an analysis of relevant practices and case studies and identifies key lessons learnt. The policy handbook also includes a checklist for action, intended as a self-assessment tool for governments and public authorities.

G20/OECD INFE Core Competencies Framework on financial literacy for Adults (aged 18+)

This document describes the types of knowledge that adults aged 18 or over could benefit from, what they should be capable of doing and the behaviours that may help them to achieve financial well-being, as well as the attitudes and confidence that will support this process. It can be used to inform the development of a national strategy on financial education, improve programme design, identify gaps in provision, and create assessment, measurement and evaluation tools.

How to really build financial capability

Recent years have seen an explosion in interventions designed to improve financial outcomes of participants. Yet on-the-ground evidence suggests that not all financial education programs are equally successful at achieving this aim.

This paper examines the difference between interventions that work, and those than do not. It attempts to answer the question: “How do you actually build financial capability?” In doing so, we aim to help interested parties enhance the effectiveness of their programs and policies by providing them with evidence-based recommendations to drive positive outcomes in participants.

Wealth and Health Equity: Investing in Structural Change

Building on the Asset Funders Network’s the Health and Wealth Connection: Investment Opportunities Across the Life Course brief, this paper details:

What we know about the health-wealth connection for adults.
Why investment in integration is important.
How philanthropy can contribute to improving health-wealth outcomes for adults.

On September 29th, AFN hosted a webinar to release the paper with featured speakers:

Dr. Annie Harper, Ph.D., Program for Recovery and Community Health, Yale School of Medicine
Joelle-Jude Fontaine, Sr. Program Officer, Human Services, The Kresge Foundation
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Chief of Race, Wealth, and Community, National Community Reinvestment Coalition

The Impact of Matched Savings Programs: Building Assets & Lasting Habits

Matched Savings programs, or Individual Development Accounts, are a financial empowerment strategy that aim to build financial stability and reduce poverty. These programs build sustainable livelihoods by working with participants to earn savings while learning about money management, build regular savings habits, self-confidence, and hope for the future. Matching
funds act as a power boost to the participants’ own savings, allowing them to purchase productive assets to move their lives forward.

This brief presents key findings from Momentum's Matched Saving programs and the impact on program graduates' saving habits, establishment of emergency savings, and contribution to registered savings.

How to deliver virtual financial education workshops

Making the transition from in-person to virtual program delivery has become a necessary step in continuing financial empowerment services during these times of physical distancing. Financial education workshops are a valuable part of any financial empowerment program, and there are many different considerations when moving these to an online format. But don’t feel daunted! There are also many different ways to approach virtual workshops.

Join our speakers Millie Acuna (SEED Winnipeg, MB) and Fatima Esmail (Momentum, Calgary, AB), who will share their learnings as experienced financial educators and facilitators. You’ll learn how to approach workshop logistics and setup, ways to engage and build rapport with your workshop attendees, and instructional design tips for virtual learning.

Click 'Get it' below to access the video link, and scroll down to access handouts, slides, and video timestamps for this webinar.

Handouts, slides, and time-stamps

Read the presentation slides for this webinar.

Handouts for this webinar:
Online financial tools and calculators (Prosper Canada)
Virtual tools for participant engagement (Prosper Canada)
Online delivery check-list (Momentum)
Jeopardy game template (SEED)

Time-stamps for the video recording:
3:26 – Agenda and introductions
5:10 – Audience polls
8:19 – Virtual delivery considerations (Speaker: Glenna Harris, Prosper Canada)

12:39 – Virtual workshops best practices (Speaker: Fatima Esmail, Momentum)
33:12 – Online money management training (Speaker: Millie Acuna, SEED)
49:07 – Q&A

Measuring financial health: What policymakers need to know

This report provides an overview of financial health and the policy responses around the world. Based on this, and the key questions of whether financial health measure more than income and if financial inclusion supports financial health, the report offers recommendations to policy makers on strategies for measuring the financial health of their population.

Credit Characteristics, Credit Engagement Tools, and Financial Well-Being

This report presents results from a joint research study between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Credit Karma. The purpose of the study is to examine how consumers’ subjective financial well-being relates to objective measures of consumers’ financial health, specifically, consumers’ credit report characteristics. The study also seeks to relate consumers’ subjective financial well-being to consumers’ engagement with financial information through educational tools.

Understanding the Pathways to Financial Well-Being

The National Financial Well-Being Survey Report is the second report in a series from the Understanding the Pathways to Financial Well-Being project.

In order to measure and study the factors that support consumer financial well-being, in 2015, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (the Bureau) contracted with Abt Associates to field a large, national survey to collect information on the financial well-being of U.S. adults. The present report uses data collected from that survey to answer a series of questions on the relationship among financial well-being and four key factors: objective financial situation, financial behavior, financial skill, and financial knowledge. In this study, we aim to enhance understanding of financial well-being and the factors that may support it by exploring these relationships.

Identity theft

Identity thieves try to use your personal information to take money from your bank account, shop with your credit card, or even commit crimes in your name. This publication explains how to spot the warning signs of identity theft, how to protect yourself, and what you can do if it happens to you.

New Risks and Emerging Technologies: 2019 BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report

The Better Business Bureau Institute for Marketplace Trust (BBB Institute) is the 501(c)(3) educational foundation of the Better Business Bureau (BBB). BBB Institute works with local BBBs across North America.

This report uses data submitted by consumers to BBB Scam Tracker to shed light on how scams are being perpetrated, who is being targeted, which scams have the greatest impact, and much more. The BBB Risk Index helps consumers better understand which scams pose the highest risk by looking at three factors—exposure, susceptibility, and monetary loss. The 2019 BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report is a critical part of BBB’s ongoing work to contribute new, useful data and analysis to further the efforts of all who are engaged in combating marketplace fraud.

Update February 24, 2022: BBB Scam Tracker- Risk Report 2020

Infographic: An overview of Canadian financial programs for people with disabilities

One in five Canadians are currently living with a disability. This infographic provides an overview of financial programs for people with disabilities in Canada based on findings in Morris et al. (2018) "A demographic, employment and income profile of Canadians with disabilities aged 15 years and over, 2017".

disability financial programs infographic

Building financial capability through financial coaching: A guide for community colleges

This guide was created to be a resource for community college educators, staff, and administrators interested in implementing financial coaching as a way to empower students to build money management skills and make healthy financial decisions. Strategies for integrating financial coaching into a variety of services that can be offered to students in a community college setting are offered. A step-by-step toolkit for implementing financial coaching services, along with recommendations, best practices, and resources is also provided.

Supporting Financial Health Fintechs in Canada: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

Technology can play a key role in addressing some of the financial challenges that Canadians face on a day-to-day basis. Over the last five to ten years we have seen a growing number of companies, called fintechs, that primarily use technology to change and enhance the way we do banking or access financial advice and services. Many of these companies are building products that are specifically meant to help Canadians improve their financial health.

The purpose of this report is to explore the existing financial health fintech landscape in Canada, the challenges that these companies face, and how an accelerator program that provides mentorship and resource supports over a defined time-frame can better help these financial health fintechs grow and thereby help improve the financial health of people across Canada.

COVID-19: Managing financial health in challenging times

This guide from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada shares guidelines and financial tips to help Canadians during COVID-19. The topics include: getting through a financial emergency, where to ask questions or voice concerns, what to do if your branch closes, and more.