Financial Resilience Institute Launches My Financial Resilience Score Tool for all Canadians

TORONTO, May 23, 2024 /CNW/ - 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 50.72 based on the tenth Index release in February 2024. With increased inflation and cost of living, housing affordability issues and other challenges faced by many, helping people to understand and maintain or improve their financial resilience through behaviour 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 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, with more information around this 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 not only understand their score as they work to make progress as they experience life events, but see how it 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 life. We aim to give them awareness to change their behaviours around money, 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 

About Financial Resilience Institute

Financial Resilience Institute is a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to improving the financial resilience and well-being of Canadians and global citizens. It partners with financial institutions, policymakers, employers and innovators in Canada and other countries to develop and implement evidence-based 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 behavioural sentiment and resilience indicators. People are scored from 0 to 100, with 'Extremely Vulnerable' having a financial resilience score of 0 to 30, 'Financially Vulnerable' a score of '30.01 to 50, 'Approaching Resilience' a score of 50.01 to 70 and 'Financially Resilient' a score of 70.01 to 100. The first Index of its kind in the world, it measures household financial resilience in Canada at the national, provincial, and individual levels, backed by over nine years of data and 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. The Index has been peer-reviewed by Statistics Canada, UN-PRB, C.D. Howe Institute, Haver Analytics and Financial Institutions using it. It is complemented by the Financial Well-Being studies instrument (2017-2024) and has applications in other countries. More information about the Index indicators, scoring model and development methodology are available at: https://www.finresilienceinstitute.org/indicators-and-scoring-model/

SOURCE Financial Resilience Institute

Media: For further information on the My Financial Resilience Score or an interview please contact: Eloise Duncan, CEO and Founder, [email protected]; Vesselina Davenport, PR Manager, [email protected]