Financial influencers, or finfluencers, create digital content about personal finance, investing, retirement planning, and more. They may be unregistered individuals working independently, unregistered individuals who have been hired by financial companies or other brands, and registered finance professionals.
While some finfluencers offer credible insights, others lack credentials or have hidden incentives (such as gaining followers or earning commissions), making it hard for audiences to assess the reliability of their advice. Finfluencer content—shared on wide-reaching platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Reddit—is often fast, free, and easy to follow. It also comes with significant risks.
Money and misinformation
The OSC’s Social Media and Retail Investing report—produced in collaboration with research firm The Decision Lab—found that investors who made decisions based on finfluencer content were 12.2 times more likely to have been scammed and 2.3 times more likely to have experienced significant losses.
Despite these risks, finfluencers remain highly influential. Many investors express general distrust toward the category, but they also report high levels of trust in the specific influencers they follow. Familiarity and personal appeal often override caution.
“That’s a concern,” says Christopher Horkins, a commercial litigator and member of the Securities Litigation Group at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. “Most people know there’s risk, but they still make a judgment call on whom they trust. Sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they don’t.”
To help protect investors, the OSC points to several strategies that can reduce the influence of misleading content. These include requiring clear disclosures and using tools like “prebunking” (pre-emptive debunking), also called “inoculation,” which uses warning messages to prepare people to spot bad advice before they act on it. “Nudging” interventions can also help by encouraging users to pause and think, or to verify the information, before sharing questionable advice.
“There are definitely people out there creating trustworthy content,” Horkins adds. “But it’s hard for the average person to tell who knows what they’re talking about, and who’s just getting paid to promote a product.”
What rules do finfluencers have to follow?
Canada doesn’t have laws specifically designed to regulate finfluencers (yet), but that hasn’t stopped regulators from using existing securities laws to pursue non-compliant behaviour. “We’ve seen regulators go after influencers who promote stocks without clearly disclosing they’re being paid,” says Horkins.
