Environics Analytics Releases WealthScapes 2013 Analyzing Canadians’ Financial Behaviour
Latest Edition Measures the Assets, Liabilities and Spending Power of Canadians
Toronto, July 25, 2013 – Environics Analytics, the marketing services and data analytics company, today announced the release of WealthScapes 2013, the latest edition of its financial database that measures the assets, liabilities and wealth of Canadians. Updated to December 2012, WealthScapes 2013 features an expanded database of more than 100 key financial and investment statistics that serves as a balance sheet for every neighbourhood (or census dissemination area) in the country.
To learn more about WealthScapes 2013, you’re invited to attend a free webinar on August 28th at 2:00 p.m. ET. Please register here.
Now in its sixth year, WealthScapes has proven to be a valuable marketing tool across a wide range of industries and sectors. Financial companies use the database to market and calculate potential sales for specific products like mortgages, mutual funds and GICs. Real estate developers draw on WealthScapes data to plan commercial and residential developments. And retailers and fundraisers use it to find consumers with significant spending power beyond what their household incomes would suggest, such as retirees on fixed incomes who have sizable investment portfolios.
To increase the dataset’s effectiveness, Environics Analytics incorporated two major enhancements that have increased the number of financial variables from 86 to 109. The first improvement increased the number of household income categories, with WealthScapes 2013 now offering six income categories above $100,000 to better differentiate and locate affluent Canadians. The second enhancement increases the classification of household liquid asset holdings by separating “segregated funds” and “mutual funds” under the new heading “investment funds.” All three product groups provide both an incidence of household holdership and an amount of holdings—within and outside a registered savings plan. The changes will help financial institutions and investment advisors produce better estimates of market and wallet share, and allow them to differentiate mutual funds sold through other channels; it will also assist insurers when targeting households that have already shown an interest in segregated funds.
“The new enhancements reflect our continuing commitment to upgrade our datasets each year,” says Catherine Pearson, vice president and leader of the financial services practice at Environics Analytics. “WealthScapes already helps businesses and not-for-profits better understand their constituents and markets. With these additional variables, WealthScapes 2013 is even more powerful when it comes to helping our clients reach their customers and identify markets of opportunity.”