IPT Activities
Investor Education in Your Workplace® Program
The Investor Education in Your Workplace® Program provides investor education and protection to individuals in their workplace.
Investor Education in Your Workplace® provides investor education and protection to individuals in their workplace. IPT is collarborating with the Investor Protection Institute, State Securities Regulators and State credit union associations to provide online investor education and protection curriculum to credit union employees in participating states. The program was piloted with credit union employees and educators in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The pilot programs have shown strong results including a 27% improvement in knowledge for teachers in Wisconsin and a 38% and 47% improvement in knowledge for credit union employees in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin respectively. More than 8,000 employees at 200 plus organizations finished 100,000 training hours during the pilot programs.
The program has now been expanded into 13 States. The Investor Education in Your Workplace® program provides 10 hours of online investor education and protection to at least 500 credit union employees in each participating State. As a key part of the project, the project team tracks data related to the participants’ engagement and success with the program. This data demonstrates quantitatively how an increase in investment knowledge can positively impact investment attitudes and behavior.
The course topics include: saving & investing, personal finance, investing basics, investment strategies, investment risks, retirement planning, retirement plan options, mutual funds, financial advisors and putting it all together.
Investor Education in Your Workplace® Research
In 2009 and 2010 researchers at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, in cooperation with the Wisconsin Credit Union League, administered a series of surveys to hundreds of employees at Wisconsin credit unions participating in Inestor Education in Your Workplace® program. The researchers determined that the online investor education provided by the Investor Education in Your Workplace® program led to both sustained knowledge and changed behavior in program participants.
Investor Education for Credit Union Employees: Survey Results for Wisconsin