My Financial Progress - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

There is no additional cost to use My Financial Progress.

As long as you’re registered for BMO Online Banking, you can sign in and access the My Financial Progress tool in a couple of ways:

• Your desktop: Select Bank Services in BMO Online Banking and then My Financial Progress. Then choose Open My Financial Progress and agree to the Terms and Conditions.
• Your mobile device: Select Bank Services in BMO Online Banking and then My Financial Progress.  Then choose Open My Financial Progress you will be agreeing to the Terms and Conditions.

Not registered for BMO Online Banking? Enroll now.

You can find more details about My Financial Progress Terms and Conditions and Privacy Terms here. 

Yes, you can download a PDFP D F file with a summary of your goal details, projections, strategies, and more within the digital tool.

Yes. You can check out this video tutorial to learn more about My Financial Progress and how it can help you.

You can also check out this demo for a step-by-step guide on setting up your My Financial Progress profile.

To provide you with personalized offers for products and services, we may use your personal information to contact you about marketing and promotional opportunities relating to BMO or our affiliates. You can always select the unsubscribe link in the emails we send to stop receiving them. We may also use the personal information in My Financial Progress to make automated decisions about the products and services we offer you.

To learn more about how we collect and use your personal information, please review our Privacy Code at bmo.com/privacy.

Setting up your plan can be done in just a few steps! You can always make your plan as detailed as you like to start and add to it over time. As you add more information, you’ll get a better understanding of your financial situation and receive tailored recommendations to help you make real financial progress.

Changes you make are auto-saved, so you don’t have to worry about losing any info whenever you revisit your plan.

You can add the following goal types to your plan:

Financial Well-Being: this goal provides a comprehensive perspective of your overall financial situation. It uses a unique scoring system instead of percentage or dollar amount indicators, which include: Improve, fair, good, or great. This holistic approach allows you to observe how your individual goals contribute to a more balanced and secure financial journey.

Retirement: This goal helps you explore strategies to reach your desired lifestyle in retirement.

Education: This goal can be for you, your spouse/common law partner, or dependents. Costs are assumed to be indexed to inflation and to cover a 4-year program starting from the goal date. You can add multiple education goals to your plan.

Purchase a Home: This goal helps you achieve your home ownership goals while maintaining balance with your other financial priorities.

Upcoming Major Expense: This goal helps you plan for large expenditures without disrupting progress of other financial priorities. You can add multiple major expense goals to your plan.

Create a Rainy Day Fund: This goal helps you plan for readily available funds to provide financial stability and peace of mind if you face unexpected circumstances, such as a job loss or medical emergency.

You can add a spouse, common law partner or dependent(s) to your plan in the Household tab. This option will appear after you enter details about your desired retirement timeline. While you can name a spouse or common law partner to your plan, they won’t have access to review or update the plan.

Note that once a spouse or common law partner is added to your plan this cannot be undone.

For dependents, you can also enter a future birthday for future planning.

No, only Canadian Dollar BMO accounts are pre-filled in the tool.

Yes, Canadian Dollar BMO joint accounts are pre-filed in the tool.

To add a defined contribution plan, you’ll need to select Add Account Type under the Accounts tab. Then, hover over Other Accounts and select Defined Contribution Plan. From here, you can add balance information, jurisdiction, and conversion details.

You can find your pre-filled BMO credit cards, lines of credit and loans, or mortgage details under the Liabilities tab.

Select the account to which you make regular contributions in the Accounts tab. Then, select the button beneath it and indicate the following:

• How much you regularly contribute to the account.
• The frequency and rate at which you contribute.
• The start and end date of the contribution.

The retirement expense estimates are based on 90%, 100% and 110% of the available cash flow prior to the retirement age you define in the tool. The cash flow is calculated after deducting withholdings, savings, and debt payments; this provides three options of projected expenses to help you plan for retirement. You can also specify a retirement expense amount based on your personal needs rather than selecting one of the auto-generated options.

This will depend on your preferences and what you find most important. Retirement expenses, plan preferences and risk tolerance will help in informing which strategies the tool will serve up first.

Yes, any updates you make to your plan will be saved and accessible each time you log in. If your BMO account or liability balances have changed, this will automatically be updated in the tool the next time you log in.

You can get direct assistance by selecting Request Help within the tool or book an appointment online.

You can go into the tool at any time to update your plan or add or remove goals and strategies. Your data will be auto-saved.

A goal can’t be deleted if there are applied or skipped strategies linked to it. The delete icon will be greyed out, and hovering over it will display a message indicating that “Applied strategies exist for this goal”. To delete a goal, you must first remove any applied or skipped strategies from the respective goal card under the Planning tab. Once all linked strategies are removed, you can delete the goal from the respective goals card on the Information tab.

How you interpret the goal success percentage is dependent on the goal type:

Education, Rainy Day, Home Purchase and Major Expense

These goals measure progress as a percentage. The value required to meet these goals is predetermined and finite, so the percentage represents the funds allocated to the goal as a percentage of the total needed. If more money than required has been allocated to the goal, the percentage will exceed 100%.

Retirement

The Retirement goal progress percentage reflects how much of your retirement goal has been funded, based on the amount needed between your planned retirement date and expected life span. If it’s over 100%, it means your savings could last beyond your life expectancy, based on average investment withdrawals in the final six years of the plan. It doesn’t represent an increase in annual retirement income.

Financial Well-Being

The Financial Well-Being goal is scored as either Improve, Fair, Good, or Great, depending on how many key factors have been met. Since all customer situations are unique, the Financial Well-Being score considers and weighs factors, including, but not limited to:

• When an expense may occur.
• Your net worth and cash flow.
• Ability to manage debt.

We recommend booking a financial progress check every six months to ensure you’re on track to make real financial progress.

When you apply a strategy, your goal progress will be updated in My Financial Progress and your summary will reflect your forecasted position. To help keep you on track, you can review applied strategies on your to-do list and take action.

Got questions on the product recommendations and My Financial Progress strategies you’ve received? Select Request Help to contact us – we’ll discuss your goals and which products are most suitable for you based on your financial situation.

You can check which strategies you’ve applied within two places on the tool: the To-do list tab and under the Applied section for each goal within the Planning tab. You can always go to the skipped section to re-apply skipped strategies. 

Yes. You can customize a number of things in the Planning tab, including strategy amounts, time frames and more. You can also preview their impact and then apply them to your plan.

If you’ve already applied a strategy to your plan and you’d like to update it, you can also do this: Navigate to the Planning tab, select the related goal and go to the Applied tab. Once you find the strategy you’d like to update, you can select Show Settings and customize it to your preferences.

Yes, strategies will populate within the tool as you add goals and build a plan. As you apply strategies in the Planning tab, actions may be added to your To-do list. This may be tied to BMO product recommendations and next steps. For example, the tool may recommend you schedule a call with an Investment Specialist, or to visit BMO.com to learn more about a product or service and connect with an expert.

Depending on the recommendation, the tool may prompt you to take different actions. This will show within your To-Do list.

These may include:

• Booking an appointment with a BMO advisor.
• Scheduling a call with the Investments team.
• Visiting BMO.com to learn more about a product, contact us and/or open an account.

You can always contact us to book an appointment online or by selecting Request Help within the tool.

To ensure proper functionality, please ensure that browser pop-up blockers are disabled while using My Financial Progress.

You can contact us to have any issues you’re experiencing with the digital platform escalated.

We’re constantly updating the tool to improve the experience and add new features, so you can always close it and try again later.

If the issue persists, please contact us to have this escalated.

At this time, only personal banking customers with a debit card can access My Financial Progress.

Want to try it out? Contact a BMO Advisor about getting your debit card today. 

You will need to use portrait mode to access your plan on a mobile device. Landscape mode is currently not supported.