Ohio Deferred Compensation Now Offering Enrich Financial Wellness Platform to Current and Retired Participants

Columbus, OH—The Ohio Public Employees Deferred Compensation Program (Ohio DC) and San Diego-based financial education company iGrad have partnered to offer the award-winning Enrich™ financial wellness platform to more than 243,000 Ohio DC participants. 

Ohio DC is a supplemental 457(b) retirement plan for all Ohio public employees. The program is a public, nonprofit organization that was established in 1976 through state legislation.

Ohio DC’s goals with offering Enrich include increased financial knowledge, improved financial wellbeing and reduced financial stress.

“With Enrich, Ohio DC hopes to remove financial roadblocks that can get in the way of participants achieving their dreams by providing them with fun and easy-to-use tools to improve their personal finance skills,” said Ohio DC Executive Director Christina Elliott. “Enrich is well respected in the financial wellness industry and I want to encourage all of our participants to access these free, robust financial wellness resources.”

The platform, which Ohio DC participants can access at https://ohio457.enrich.org, features the Your Money Personality™ financial behavior assessment that analyzes each user’s financial “personality.” The interactive, mobile-friendly platform also provides: 

• Financial education courses with personalized action plans on topics including budgeting, mortgages, healthcare, college savings, student loan repayment, banking, credit, financial planning and more 
• An investment allocation analyzer
• A student loan tracker
• Personal finance calculators and a real-time budget tool 

Enrich is used by more than 20,000 employers and more than 300 financial institutions nationwide, with artificial intelligence technology that engages each user with the most relevant content based on financial situation and stage of life. The Enrich platform includes dynamic tools and courses, delivering a highly personalized learning experience on financial topics including student debt, mortgages, budgeting, investing, retirement, and long-term care.  

A report¹ by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence released in April 2020 found that only 29 percent of state and local government employers offer financial literacy programs to their workforce, while 68 percent of public employees would participate in these programs if they were offered.  

The report found that even before the pandemic, 88 percent of respondents worried about their personal finances and financial decisions, and 66 percent said they worried while at work. 

According to a 2021 Capital One CreditWise survey², 73 percent of Americans rank finances as their most significant source of stress. 

To combat financial stress, Enrich users are prompted to update their stress score about every four months to gauge the correlation between improved financial wellness and stress levels. Data from 2019 shows that as Enrich participants improved financial understanding, their stress levels dropped. 

Additional Enrich data found positive behavior changes as a result of program participation, including: 

• 27 percent increase in emergency savings funds to cover three to six months of expenses 
• 28 percent increase in credit cards being paid in full every month 
• 32 percent increase in employees getting on track with their financial goals 

“Enrich can help people of all income levels and in all stages of life,” said iGrad Executive Vice President Kris Alban. “Ohio DC is demonstrating the importance of financial wellness by offering Enrich to public employees, who are part of a group that wants to engage with behavior-changing financial education.”

About iGrad 

iGrad is a San Diego-based financial technology company that offers artificial intelligence-powered financial wellness solutions to more than 600 colleges and universities, more than 20,000 employers and more than 300 financial institutions. iGrad’s Your Money Personality™ was recently recognized by the Institute for Financial Literacy with the 2020 Excellence in Financial Literacy Education (EIFLE) Adults’ Education Program of the Year award. iGrad is one of three 2020 honorees in the inaugural Barron's Celebrates: Financial Empowerment, after being selected by a team of judges for its contributions to improving the financial health and security of Americans. iGrad also received the 2019 Eddy Award for Financial Wellness by Pensions & Investments for its Enrich platform. For more information about the iGrad platform, visit https://www.igradfinancialwellness.com. For more information about the Enrich platform for employers and financial institutions, visit https://www.enrich.org. 

1 - https://slge.org/news-posts/new-research-shows-state-and-local-public-employees-concerned-about-their-personal-finances

2 - https://www.cnbc.com/select/73-percent-of-americans-rank-finances-as-the-number-one-stress-in-life/