The RSI launches an innovative online tool for retirement preparation
May 20, 2021
The HEC Montréal Retirement and Savings Institute (RSI) has launched an online tool to help anyone living and working in Canada evaluate their readiness for retirement. The Canadians’ Preparation for Retirement (CPR) calculator is available free of charge.
The calculator was developed by the RSI team, with financial support from the National Pension Hub at the Global Risk Institute (GRI). The goal of this decision-assistance tool is to let the general public take advantage of the research conducted at HEC Montréal and elsewhere.
The calculator consists of an electronic form to be completed with the individual’s current financial data and retirement forecasts. None of the information entered is recorded, so it all remains confidential. The calculator then provides a brief graphical and numerical picture of the individual’s possible post-retirement financial situation.
The CPR has a number of advantages: it is fast, detailed and flexible, taking account of a variety of crucial factors, such as taxes, government transfers and programs, the person’s retirement and savings plans, financial wealth accumulated to date and business and housing equity.
It uses sophisticated and carefully calibrated projection models reflecting the evolution over time of the individual’s employment earnings, the returns on the different types of financial assets and the prices of residential real estate. Users can also change certain assumptions – for instance the future rate of return on an investment – directly in the interface, to generate and compare different scenarios.