Improving Investment Literacy

Alberta Securities Commission Offers Tools and Resources for Albertans

Since day one, The AIMCo Foundation has been a true collaboration among volunteers, donors and partners who together make it possible for us to support community outreach programs and scholarships.

We’re featuring an AIMCo client this week — the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC) as it too is committed to growing financial literacy in Alberta. Their focus is on investment literacy.

“Like the AIMCo Foundation, we at the Alberta Securities Commission believe in raising financial literacy — we are committed to raising investment literacy in Alberta,” says Hilary McMeekin, Director, Communications & Investor Education, Alberta Securities Commission.

Where the AIMCo Foundation is focused on financial education through outreach, the ASC has a dedicated team that is committed to educating investors and providing Albertans with independent, unbiased tools and resources. The goal is to empower Albertans to make informed investment and financial decisions and to recognize and avoid fraud. In addition to community presentations, webinars and outreach, the ASC’s investor website, checkfirst.ca, is continually updated with easy-to-understand articles, videos, calculators, factsheets and more. Whether you are new to investing, or have been doing it for years, checkfirst.ca provides something for everyone.

To help create resources that are useful, the ASC conducted research in 2021 and found some interesting information reinforcing how critical the need is for financial education in the communities it serves.

• Albertans are active in investing, but not overly involved or informed. Only 13% consider themselves very confident in making decisions about money issues, investing or savings. About half (52%) say they are ‘fairly confident’.
• Large proportions of Albertans are concerned about their financial future, lack confidence, and are not really informed about important aspects of investing. They feel like they don’t currently have access to a trusted information source.
• Albertans turn to a mix of reliable and unofficial information sources: 50% rely on Online (Google) searches, 47% rely on their bank, 41% rely on friends/family members for general information on money and investments.  Media consumption (such as TV, magazines, online etc.) varies for various demographics.

We’re stronger together most certainly applies here — The AIMCo Foundation is stronger and makes a bigger impact together with organizations like the Alberta Securities Commission.