FinLII
About FinLII

Money, made plain.

FinLII stands for Financial Literacy, Inclusion and Independence. We help people in Canada take control of their money and get on a path to a safe financial future, with free, neutral, hands-on learning.

Why FinLII

In spring 2025, 39% of Canadians said their household found it difficult to meet its financial needs, double the share in 2021. Consumer insolvencies in 2025 were the highest since 2009. Canadians reported losing $704 million to fraud that year, and more than $1 billion in benefits goes unclaimed each year by people who don’t file a tax return.

There’s plenty of free financial content. Much of it comes from companies selling products, and most of it is articles to read. FinLII is built to change outcomes: short journeys you work through with your own numbers, ending in a plan you can act on.

The three pillars

  • Literacy: knowing how money works, from a pay stub to a credit report.
  • Inclusion: getting access to what you’re entitled to, like a low-cost bank account, a Canadian credit history or the benefits you’ve been missing.
  • Independence: being in control of your money and making your own decisions with confidence.

We measure progress with the Independence Score. Each journey asks the same short question at the start and the end, so you can see the change.

Our principles

  1. Education, never advice. We explain how things work. We never recommend specific products, securities or providers.
  2. Neutral by design. No affiliate links, no selling leads, no ads from financial companies.
  3. Show, don’t just tell. Explainers, simulators, calculators and quick checks instead of walls of text.
  4. Plain language. Written for your situation, not the industry’s vocabulary.
  5. Localized. Content reflects your province where the rules differ.
  6. Outcomes over traffic. We judge ourselves by whether people gain control.
  7. Safety is always free. Fraud, debt and where-to-get-help content will never be behind a paywall.
  8. Privacy first. What you type into a journey stays in your browser.

Funding and independence

FinLII is an initiative of KPIFinity Inc., a Canadian company, which funds its development.

  • We don’t accept payment, advertising, sponsorship or referral fees from banks, lenders, investment firms, insurers or other financial product providers.
  • If we work with partners, such as community organizations, credit unions or employers that offer FinLII to their members, they never get a say in what we publish.
  • We’ll disclose any partnership or funding source on this page.
  • Questions about how we’re funded? Ask us at hello@finlii.com.

How we make content

  • We rely first on government sources, regulators and official program pages, and check figures against them.
  • Figures that change, like benefit amounts and fee limits, are dated and reviewed at least once a year.
  • Examples and characters are fictional. Example figures are labelled as examples.
  • Calculators show estimates for learning. Your lender, the CRA or a professional has the final numbers.

Education, not advice

FinLII provides general financial education. It isn’t financial, investment, tax or legal advice, and it doesn’t consider your personal situation. FinLII doesn’t decide whether you qualify for a benefit or a product. For advice about your situation, speak with a qualified professional, a non-profit credit counsellor or the organization involved.

Why it looks this way

Money is confusing partly because institutions speak in documents: statements, notices, credit reports, fine print. So every FinLII journey opens with a realistic sample document, annotated in plain language, so you learn to read the real thing.

  • Banknote colours. Each journey wears the colour of a Canadian polymer note: fraud is the $5 blue, benefits the $10 purple, everyday money the $20 green, debt the $50 red and credit the $100 brown.
  • The seal. Our emblem is guilloché, the fine engraved linework used on banknotes to make them hard to fake. It’s drawn live in your browser, in all five colours.
  • The type. Body text is set in Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface designed by the Braille Institute so letters are easier to tell apart for people with low vision.

Accessibility and languages

We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. Every explainer has captions and a transcript, every tool works with a keyboard, and the site works on a phone. Our main pages and the benefits and fraud journeys are in English and French. The other journeys are coming to French next.

Read our full accessibility statement, or tell us about a barrier at hello@finlii.com.