Canadians Tested on Financial Knowledge: Mixed Results

Most of us (67 per cent of us, to be precise) are aware enough not to share our Personal Identification Number (PIN) with others, including our own family members.

That, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) says, is the good news.

Only a few of us (about 40 per cent of us, to be precise) are aware that getting a credit card advance means we're going to pay interest as soon as the money lands in our hands. And that, the agency says, is the bad news.

These are some of the findings of a Financial Consumer Agency of Canada survey that measured Canadians' knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of financial consumers and financial institutions, and compared them to a similar survey conducted in 2006.

Liked this article? Don't miss another one. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook.The agency concentrated on three areas: banking rights and responsibilities, responsibilities for accounts, and credit reports. It also examined Canadians' views on dealing with financial institutions.

• 86 per cent of us are aware that each person is responsible for joint chequing and savings accounts (an increase from 73 per cent in 2006), while nearly three in four (72 per cent) realize that the primary account holder is responsible for any charges when a second credit card on the same account is issued to another person, up from 63 percent in 2006. Canadians' knowledge of their responsibility for accounts scored high.
• Three in five Canadians (63 per cent) feel confident that they know their rights if they have a problem with a financial institution, down slightly from 66 per cent in 2006.
• And awareness of how to read credit reports was galling. Most people (90 per cent) do not know that you can obtain a credit report free by mail, while 62 per cent do not know how to dispute an entry in their credit report - this number has gone up from 2006, when 51 per cent knew that.

Just to summarize: a credit report is a record of how you have used credit and whether you pay your loans and bills. FCAC's publication Understanding Your Credit Report and Credit Score can help you learn how to obtain and understand your credit report and score and how to improve your score.

The survey questions were part of an omnibus poll conducted by Ipsos Reid in September and October 2011. The overall sample of 2,002 respondents has a 2.2 per cent margin of error.

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