DFI Announce Launch of Investor Education In Your Workplace In Washington Credit Unions

DFI is pleased to announce today that it is bringing to Washington a major workplace investor education program with a proven record of accomplishment documented in field-testing on about 8,500 employees in hundreds of workplaces in other states.

Investor Education in Your Workplace® (IEiYW) is a project of the nonprofit Investor Protection Institute (IPI) with support provided through the Investor Protection Trust (IPT). It is carried out jointly with state securities agencies, Washington’s DFI Division of Credit Unions and the National Credit Union Foundation (NCUF). After its initial testing phase in three states, IEiYW is now expanding to the District of Columbia and seven additional states: Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Washington.


The 10-week online training program is producing groundbreaking results:

• Up to 50 percent increases in short- and long-term saving and investing activities;
• Up to 40 percent improvement in investment knowledge measured through pre- and post-testing;
• Up to 50 percent improvement in participant attitudes and behaviors including increased financial well-being, setting investment goals, implementing a budget, and starting/increasing contributions to 401(k), IRA, or equivalent plans;
• 88 percent of participants complete the program; and
• 96 percent say they would like to participate in additional programs.

With financial support from the Investor Protection Trust in 2009, the University of Wisconsin, Madison (U of W Madison), and the Educated Investor (EI) collaborated to develop a workplace-centered, online financial education program with the goal of providing employees with unbiased instruction in personal finance and investing fundamentals.

The first program was rolled out in Wisconsin in 2010. The Educated Investor (published by Precision Information, LLC) provides the content, technology and program management for IEiYW.

For more information about Investor Education in Your Workplace, go to http://www.investoreducationinyourworkplace.org/ .