Edu(k)ate Partners with Wall Street Survivor to Expand Course Offerings
Orlando-based edu(k)ate, an online library of curated content designed to improve financial literacy, has expanded to include a new course from Wall Street Survivor, a company that builds courses in investment strategy. Wall Street Survivor was recently featured on Lifehacker.
The new course, Introduction to Retirement Funds, provides information about target dates as an important part of retirement investing. Through the 10- minute course, participants learn about the challenges of investing for retirement, how age affects investment strategies, and the ins and outs of target date funds.
Edu(k)ate aims to connect 401(K) participants to online financial education, either independently or through an employer. In addition to assisting the individual, it provides resources to companies wanting to better educate their employees on retirement planning and to consultants tasked with providing financial training. The basic service is free for all, but employers can upgrade to access a contest system and analytics.
The company was founded by Chris Whitlow and Anthony Collini. Chris worked as a retirement plan consultant for years and recognized a need for basic financial education. He saw that many employees were either not saving enough money for retirement or were not participating in the retirement plan at all.
“The recent financial crisis shed light on how unstable our economy is. Financial literacy is important because we live in a financially complex world and, because of this, our goal is to make financial education an essential right to all. Think of financial literacy in the same context as emergency hurricane planning. In our day and age this stuff is life-altering important and most people just don’t realize it until it’s too late,” said Chris.
Online educational providers have a limited reach, and there is no real incentive for companies to encourage employees to use these services. Edu(k)ate tracks user statistics and provides employers with a report that helps them document compliance with ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act), which sets minimum standards for pension plans.
ERISA requires that employers provide employees with adequate information relating to plan features, and participants have the right to sue if fiduciary responsibility is not met. By partnering with retirement plan providers, edu(k)ate can alleviate risk for employers and expand the audience of companies like Wall Street Survivor.
The edu(k)ate team has a few new partnerships in the works, but can’t reveal details yet. They expect to have more news to share by the end of the summer.
