OSC launches Investing Academy during Financial Literacy Month

TORONTO – The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) today announced a new interactive feature on its recently relaunched Get Smarter About Money investor education website and its programming for Financial Literacy Month.

Investing Academy by GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca has free courses designed to help people take action in ensuring a safe and secure financial future.​ It includes three modules for learners of any age: Investing 101, Managing your Money 101 and Planning for the Future. You can visit GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca/Learn to enroll.

The courses include learning activities, quizzes, tips and videos and take about one hour to complete. ​The learning platform is easy to use and accessible on desktop and mobile devices. Investing Academy can help investors build the knowledge and confidence to invest and plan for their future by participating in the capital markets.

“We’re pleased to introduce our suite of investor education courses during Financial Literacy Month,” said Tyler Fleming, Director of the Investor Office at the OSC. “Investing Academy is an important pilot education initiative that encourages people to gain knowledge and put it into action, on top of many other planned activities and resources for Financial Literacy Month.”

Investing Academy by GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca will help advance the investor protection mandate of the OSC​. The course modules reinforce the OSC’s leadership role in offering free education and outreach across multiple channels including videos, articles, tools and other resources.

Managing your money in a changing world is the theme of this year’s Financial Literacy Month. Throughout November, OSC in the Community is offering many in person and virtual activities. The outreach program takes the OSC’s regulatory mandate from Bay Street to Main Street and provides people with information on growing and protecting their money. All events are free to participants. Highlights include:

• Fraud chat – Follow @smarter_money to see the OSC’s one-hour #Fraudchat on Nov. 16 at 1 p.m., on Twitter with participants from law enforcement, regulatory partners and community organizations.
• Cyber safety webinar - Register to attend a one-hour webinar with Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre and the OSC on Nov. 21 at 1 p.m. Learn more about online security, fraud trends and stats, and how artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in financial services and by fraudsters.
• Telephone Townhall – Join on Nov. 22 at 7 p.m., for a discussion about financial literacy basics and avoiding fraud. OSC staff will share important information and answer your questions. Register today to join online or by phone.

The OSC relaunched its award-winning investor education website GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca — it now has new artificial intelligence tools, the latest accessibility features, and significant design innovations. It also introduces design elements informed by behavioural insights to help people make better decisions along their investing journey. GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca has informative articles plus tools, calculators, worksheets and videos to help people enhance their financial literacy.  

New Canadians, people new to investing and seniors can also find information in their own language with the multilingual website Introduction to Investing. 

For more financial education resources, investors can sign-up for Investor News. The OSC’s popular e-newsletter helps Ontarians stay informed with topical articles, resources and investor alerts.

The mandate of the OSC is to provide protection to investors from unfair, improper or fraudulent practices, to foster fair, efficient and competitive capital markets and confidence in the capital markets, to foster capital formation, and to contribute to the stability of the financial system and the reduction of systemic risk. Investors are urged to check the registration of any persons or company offering an investment opportunity and to review the OSC investor materials available at http://www.osc.ca.

– 30 –