Advisors’ online presence can crowd out bad finfluencer content: SIMA

Canada needs a larger online presence from qualified financial advisors and stronger securities enforcement to stamp out bad advice from unlicensed finfluencers, concludes a report by the Securities and Investment Management Association (SIMA) published Tuesday.

Finfluencers are reaching a broader audience than often assumed, and overlap with the demographics of some advisors’ clients.

Based on a poll of 5,400 Canadian adults, SIMA’s report found that those with a university education (36%), over $250,000 in investible assets (40%), a self-directed brokerage account (44%) and who said they had an “expert” level of investment expertise (59%) were more likely to engage with finfluencer content.

However, investors aren’t turning to finfluencers for better advice, the report found. Only 14% of respondents said they engaged with finfluencer content because they distrusted advisors. Rather, finfluencers’ availability in digital spaces investors already inhabit make them more convenient to access.

At the same time, it’s common for people looking at online content to conflate popularity with expertise, mistakenly believing that a high number of followers is synonymous with quality content, SIMA said. “Retail investors are prone to herding behaviour, following perceived leaders rather than objectively evaluating skill or performance.”

Investors aged 55 and over predominantly rely on formal and regulated sources like financial advisors and financial news outlets, which may help sustain investment confidence, the report found. They expressed greater confidence in their investment decisions (64%) than investors between 18-34, even those using a multitude of informal sources (55%).

Advisors need to be visible online

Despite finfluencers’ popularity, advisors are still the largest source (50%) of investment advice in Canada. Client satisfaction with advisors also remains high (more than 7.5 out of 10) across age groups, provinces, genders and household income.

Hence, finfluencers aren’t an existential threat to advisors, but a call for advisors to provide good advice online as more credible complements.

“The rise of finfluencers is a call to action for advisors to adapt, not retreat,” the report said. “As investors are more and more digitally influenced, advisor success will depend on digital engagement and helping clients scrutinize online content critically.”

Advisors can use webinars, short-form videos and interactive tools to explain foundational concepts like risk and diversification, SIMA suggested.

Advisors can also take on fact-checking roles to help investors transition from consuming trend-focused content to making informed and active investment decisions.  This way, advisors can position themselves as guidance experts to help clients assess the credibility of investment claims and distinguish between registered and unregistered sources of advice.

They can both validate sound advice and debunk harmful lies, SIMA said. “This role aligns directly with investor-protection objectives and supports informed decision-making.”

Adapt regulation, internal controls to the digital age

Regulators around the world have started cracking down on finfluencers who flaunt securities regulations. In the past year, four provincial regulators partnered with five international partners to take legal action against unruly finfluencers, the OSC investigated the effectiveness of mandating disclaimers in finfluencer content, and the CSA and CIRO released guidance on how current regulation applies to online content.

Some Canadian regulators already use AI-powered supervisory technology to triage the huge volume of online financial content to spot potential violators. AI will continue to play a large role in spotting undisclosed conflicts of interest, impersonation and other risks among unstructured information, the report noted.

Further coordination with platforms and cross-sector initiatives, like the Canadian Anti-Scam Coalition, can enable timely information-sharing, intervention and content takedowns, the report said. More international enforcement collaboration, such as through International Organization of Securities Commissions’ mechanisms, can help curb cross-border bad actors, it added.

Regulators should also focus on accountability on the party that economically benefits, not just the creator. This would mean clarifying that firms hiring finfluencers remain fully liable for promotional compliance, SIMA suggested. The content would be subject to the firms’ existing requirements as a regulated entity.

Firms can also consider modernizing their internal review process to allow post-publication review of low-risk educational content while focusing preapproval efforts on higher-risk communications, and provide advisors with templates to respond to common market narratives, the report said. Letting advisors create more digital content with less administrative burden “supports the visibility of regulated professionals in environments where unregulated commentary is increasingly influential.”

The bilingual Pollara survey between July 8 and 29, 2025, of 5,400 Canadian adults were weighted by age, gender and region.