Market Education Finalist (2021)
Desjardins
Project: The RI Certification Program: Empowering advisors to integrate RI into their practice and to educate their clients
The findings of a survey conducted by Desjardins at the end of 2018 confirmed what had already been observed in the industry for a few years. Only 1 in 2 Canadian investors knows about RI, but when they hear about this type of investment, 63% would include RI in their portfolio. Yet, only 14% of investment advisors (IAs) spoke about RI with their clients.
As a pioneer and leader in RI, we feel that we should support advisor and investor education to increase awareness and understanding, so that IAs can offer their client an investment solution that truly addresses their client’s needs to make money, and make their money matter.
The Desjardins RI Certification Program (RICP) is a half-day program that gives insight into one of the fastest growing segments in the investment market. It clarifies how RI represents an opportunity for IAs, the added value of RI in terms of financial and extra-financial returns and delves deeply into a specific strategy presented by one of our RI portfolio managers.
The RICP reached over 800 IIROC, MFDA and MGA advisors from dozens of different firms in all provinces.
In addition to educating IAs, we equip them so that they can, in turn, educate and empower their clients with RI. We developed a toolbox available to any IA that helps them integrate RI in the client conversation. It includes the opportunity to host turn-key educational client seminars where we offer logistic support, content and a speaker. The seminar reached over 2,000 clients.
The winner and finalist scorecards can be found here.