Financial Resilience Institute

May 23 · 5 mins

Financial Resilience Institute Launches My Financial Resilience Score Tool for all Canadians and global citizens

 

The free tool empowers Canadians to assess their financial resilience and how they compare to peers, and access independent resources to build a more secure future. People from around the world can also check their score anytime, anywhere.

 

Toronto, ON – May 23, 2024 – Financial Resilience Institute, the leading independent authority on financial well-being in Canada, today announced the launch of its new My Financial Resilience Score tool. This brings its Financial Resilience Index model to the individual household level. This easy-to-use online tool empowers Canadians to understand and assess their financial resilience and compare their scores to peers of similar age and income, backed by the Institute’s peer-reviewed Financial Resilience Index model [1].

The tool is free and highly inclusive and accessible to everyone, including Canadian newcomers who may not have a credit score and people globally.

Eloise Duncan, CEO and Founder of the non-profit Institute and creator of the Index and tool, says: “ We are delighted to launch My Financial Resilience Score tool and make this resource available for all Canadians and people around the world who are interested in understanding and improving their financial resilience. This reflects your ability to weather unexpected life events or financial setbacks, such as job loss, medical bills, or economic downturns while progressing towards your financial goals. This tool differs from traditional financial tools in that it brings light to the behaviours that influence our resilience directly, regardless of income and demographics. Building your financial resilience enhances your overall resilience and well-being. Offering this tool aligns with our impact goal to promote financial empowerment and inclusion while helping to improve the financial resilience for all.”

Financial vulnerability and financial stress are mainstream issues in Canada, with this measured and tracked by Duncan since 2017. The financial resilience of Canadians is not getting better, with the Mean Canada Financial Resilience score at 50.72 based on the tenth Index release in February 2024. Given rising inflation, cost of living, housing affordability struggles, and other challenges, helping people understand and maintain or improve their financial resilience through behavior change and accessing relevant support is critical.

 

Why the tool is relevant:

  1. Financial Vulnerability is a mainstream issue: 78% of Canadians are not ‘Financially Resilient’ and experience some level of financial vulnerability based on the February 2023 Index. However, by adjusting their behaviours and accessing relevant support, the Institute has proved that people can improve their financial resilience within months.
  2. Widespread interest in understanding and improving: Three-quarters of Canadians, across all demographics, say they want to better understand their financial resilience and how they can improve it, based on the Institute’s February 2024 Financial Well-Being study with 6223 Canadians. Younger people and those who are more financially vulnerable based on their index scores are particularly keen.
  3. Interest in getting their individual score: 57% of Canadians expressed interest in having their individual financial resilience score calculated. More information can be found in the Institute’s February 2024 Index report.

 

Benefits of the My Financial Resilience Score Tool:

  • Free and Easy to Use: People can get their individual free financial resilience score in 2-3 minutes on a computer or phone, anytime they want.
  • Meaningful Contextualization: Importantly, people can understand their score and track their progress over time as they experience life events. They can also see how their score compares to Canadians of a similar age and income based on the Institute’s peer-reviewed Index, with benchmark data updated every four months.
  • ‘Thought Starters’ and Independent Resources: The tool microsite offers links to some independent articles and resources to help people think about and potentially take steps to maintain or improve their financial resilience, knowing this is a journey. This complements other resources people may have access to and does not replace professional financial guidance or advice.

 

“At Financial Resilience Institute, we believe everyone deserves the opportunity to achieve financial resilience, health, and well-being,” said Duncan. “We hope this tool empowers Canadians and others to build a more financially resilient future. We are confident it will positively impact peoples’ lives. Our goal is to help empower people to understand and track their financial resilience in their lives. We aim to give them awareness to change their financial behaviours and use that to guide different conversations with their financial institutions and financial experts, compared to more traditional ones around budgeting, RRSPs and emergency savings funds.”

My Financial Resilience Score is available at www.financialresiliencescore.com.

 

Media:

For further information on the Intelligence memo or an interview please contact:

Eloise Duncan, CEO and Founder: eloise@finresilienceinstitute.org
Vesselina Davenport, PR Manager: ina@finresilienceinstitute.org

 

About Financial Resilience Institute

Financial Resilience Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the financial resilience and well-being of Canadians and global citizens. It is the leading independent authority on financial resilience and financial well-being in Canada. The Institute partners with financial institutions, business leaders and policymakers to development and implement solutions that improve financial resilience, health and well-being for all.

[1] The proprietary Seymour Financial Resilience Index ® measures household financial resilience, i.e. your ability to get through financial hardship, stressors and shocks as a result of unplanned life events across nine behavioral sentiment and resilience indicators. People are scored from 0 to 100 with ‘Extremely Vulnerable’ households having a financial resilience score of 0 to 30, ‘Financially Vulnerable’ households a score of ’30.01 to 50, ‘Approaching Resilience’ households a score of 50.01 to 70 and ‘Financially Resilient’ households a score of 70.01 to 100. The Index has been peer-reviewed by Statistics Canada, UN-PRB, C.D. Howe Institute, Haver Analytics and many Financial Institutions. It measures consumer financial resilience at national, provincial, and individual levels across Canada, based on over nine years of robust data, with a pre-pandemic baseline of February 2020. Benchmark data is updated every four months and based on a representative sample of population with over 5000 Canadians. Aged 18 to 70 years old. The Index has applications in other countries, with more information about its development methodology available at: https://www.finresilienceinstitute.org/why-we-created-the-index/