OSC broadens investor education to new Canadians during Financial Literacy Month

TORONTO - The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) today published a suite of new multilingual resources for Financial Literacy Month. These new resources are part of the OSC’s priority of reaching and educating newcomers about investing in Canada.

“It’s important that people who are new to Canada have access to unbiased and easy to understand information about investing and fraud prevention,” said Tyler Fleming, Director of the Investor Office at the OSC. “People can benefit from the many free financial education resources and events we provide in multiple languages.”

As part of its activities, the OSC is launching expanded resources in Chinese (simplified and traditional), Hindi and Punjabi alongside English and French on its multilingual website InvestingIntroduction.ca. These resources include information on investment products, registered plans and tips on protecting against investment frauds and scams. InvestingIntroduction.ca is now available in 22 languages, and the expanded information published today will be rolled out across all languages on the website.

The OSC is also introducing new multilingual handouts as part of the expanded resources. The handouts cover topics such as common investment scams, checking registration and getting started with investing. The investor brochures will be available on the OSC’s award-winning consumer website GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca and distributed through OSC in the Community events. OSC in the Community is an outreach program that takes the OSC’s regulatory mandate from Bay Street to Main Street with seminars on preventing fraud and making informed investment decisions.

The OSC is also expanding its OSC in the Community outreach program with new events for community groups and organizations for new Canadians. Community groups and organizations for new Canadians are invited to contact the OSC about jointly organizing an OSC in the Community event. Inquiries can be sent to [email protected].

The mandate of the OSC is to provide protection to investors from unfair, improper or fraudulent practices, to foster fair and efficient capital markets and confidence in the capital markets, 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 www.osc.ca.

 

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