Is Spring Financial Legit? Yes, but It Agreed to Refund 65,000+ Borrowers

Yes, Spring Financial is legit. It’s a Vancouver lender, founded in 2014, that makes personal loans online across Canada, and Quebec’s consumer protection office lists it as a licensed lender. Its rates are published, and you can pay a loan off early without a penalty.

Its record has one serious mark, though. From 2016 to 2021, Spring sold a credit-building product called the Secured Savings Loan. In 2021, BC’s financial regulator ordered Spring to stop running the trust that held the loan money. In 2023, Spring agreed with Consumer Protection BC to refund borrowers who’d taken one, and that agreement now covers more than 65,000 people across Canada. Spring’s credit builder today, called Foundation, is set up differently, and the thing to check there is the price.

Is Spring Financial a bank?

No. Spring Financial Inc. is a lender, so it doesn’t take deposits or hold a balance for you. It was incorporated in British Columbia on August 29, 2014, according to the 2021 order from the BC Financial Services Authority (opens in a new tab) (BCFSA), and it’s based in Vancouver.

That means CDIC deposit insurance doesn’t apply to a Spring loan. Deposit insurance protects money a member institution is holding for you. A loan is money you owe, so there’s nothing for it to protect. The one place your own money sits is Foundation’s savings, covered below.

What does a Spring Financial loan cost?

Spring’s personal loans (opens in a new tab) run from $500 to $35,000 over 6 to 84 months, at annual rates from 9.99% to 35%. That top rate is the legal ceiling. Since January 1, 2025, section 347 of the Criminal Code (opens in a new tab) makes any annual rate above 35% a criminal rate. Spring says your rate depends on factors like your credit score and how much you borrow.

Spring’s own example is a $5,000 loan over 48 months at 9.99%, paid weekly at $29.17. You’d repay $6,066.48 in all, so the loan costs $1,066.48. That example uses Spring’s lowest rate, though, and a weaker credit score means a higher one. If your credit is poor, our guide to bad credit loans in Canada works out what a loan near 35% costs in dollars.

All Spring loans are open, so you can pay one off whenever you like with no extra fees or penalties. If your credit improves, you can refinance somewhere cheaper without paying anything to leave.

How does Foundation work, and what does it cost?

Foundation is Spring’s credit builder. Unlike a loan, it doesn’t pay you anything upfront. You make fixed payments every two weeks for 12 months, and Spring reports them to Equifax and TransUnion as a $5,000 instalment account. Spring’s Foundation help page (opens in a new tab) says you never receive that $5,000. Part of each payment goes into savings, and the rest is the fee.

Foundation Gold costs about $74 every two weeks. Over 26 payments that’s roughly $1,920, and $750 of it is set aside as savings. Spring describes the rest as “the cost of participating in The Foundation program”, which by our math is about $1,175 for the year. Finishing in good standing also makes you eligible for a $1,500 Evergreen Loan, repaid over as long as 18 months at 24.75% to 34.99% depending on your province. If you take it, Spring keeps your $750 in trust until the Evergreen Loan is repaid. Foundation Basic costs about $37 every two weeks and comes with no savings and no loan offer, so the whole payment is the fee.

The savings are “held in trust at Peoples Trust Company on behalf of Spring Financial,” the help page says. Peoples Trust Company is on CDIC’s list of member institutions (opens in a new tab), but Spring’s pages don’t say whether deposit insurance covers your share of that money. You can cancel at any time with no cancellation fee, and anything you owe, including the $30 charged for each missed payment, comes out of your savings.

Foundation is offered in every province except Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. Paying about $1,175 a year to build a payment history is expensive, and our comparison of credit-building apps in Canada has options that cost far less, some of them nothing.

Why did Spring Financial agree to refund 65,000 borrowers?

Because Consumer Protection BC alleged that Spring sold its old Secured Savings Loan deceptively. In exchange for the regulator closing its inspection, Spring signed an undertaking (opens in a new tab) in June 2023 to cancel those loans for eligible borrowers who asked, and to refund what they had paid. In November 2025 the agreement was amended to set new deadlines for borrowers outside BC who still hadn’t been refunded. To claim, they had to describe how Spring had misled them.

The Secured Savings Loan was sold from April 2016 to March 2021, and BCFSA’s order describes how it worked. You signed up over the phone, and the loan money went into a trust account instead of to you. You paid it down every two weeks for three years, with interest and fees, and got the money only once it was paid off. The interest earned in the trust went to Spring.

BCFSA’s 2023 news release (opens in a new tab) says complaints reached Consumer Protection BC, BCFSA, the Competition Bureau and several Better Business Bureau offices. The common themes listed in BCFSA’s order were that borrowers didn’t understand what they’d signed, felt pressured to sign, and couldn’t cancel without losing money. In March 2021, BCFSA ordered Spring and the related company acting as trustee to stop conducting trust business in BC, because holding borrowers’ money in trust needs an authorization neither company had.

In the undertaking, Consumer Protection BC alleges that what Spring told borrowers broke BC’s Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act. Spring agreed to give eligible borrowers a full refund of what they’d paid on the loan, to pay $15,000 into BC’s Consumer Advancement Fund and to cover part of the inspection’s cost. BC borrowers were refunded in 2023 and 2024, according to Consumer Protection BC’s February 2026 release (opens in a new tab), which counts more than 65,000 eligible borrowers across Canada, including more than 38,000 in Ontario and 19,500 in Alberta. Claims were due by late June 2026.

The allegation wasn’t tested at a hearing, because the undertaking ended the inspection. Foundation, the product Spring sells now, is also built differently. Its savings sit at Peoples Trust, a trust company, instead of in a trust run by a company related to Spring.

What happens to your loan if Spring Financial closes?

You keep paying it, on the same terms. A loan is a contract, so if a lender winds down, its loans move to another company and the terms stay as they were. Lendful is a recent example. When Lendful was wound up on July 1, 2026 (opens in a new tab), its loans went to Peoples Trust, and Spring kept servicing them.

Foundation’s savings are a separate question, since that money is yours. As covered above, it sits at Peoples Trust, and you can ask for it at any time while your account is in good standing, unless you’ve taken the Evergreen Loan.

Who regulates Spring Financial?

Mostly the provinces. Spring isn’t a bank, so the federal bank regulators don’t supervise it, and lenders like it are licensed province by province. Quebec’s Office de la protection du consommateur names Spring Financial Inc. under permit 17453-1 on its list of licensed lenders (in French) (opens in a new tab), in the category for lenders that make high-cost credit agreements. The footer of Spring’s site shows licence numbers for Alberta (#349123) and Saskatchewan (#316736).

In BC, BCFSA acted on the Secured Savings Loan’s trust, and Consumer Protection BC on how the loan was sold.

What Spring Financial does well, and what to watch

Spring publishes its rates and a worked example, quotes you with a soft check, lends to people with low scores and benefit income, and reports your payments to both credit bureaus. Every loan can be repaid early for free, so you aren’t locked in.

The main thing to weigh is the cost. Rates near 35% cost a lot, and Foundation charges about $1,175 a year for a payment history you can build more cheaply. And since the old complaints were about borrowers who didn’t know what they’d signed, read the full agreement before you sign anything.

Saving the $750 in your own account

Lodavo publishes this site and makes a prize-linked savings app. We don’t make loans or hold deposits, and Spring Financial doesn’t pay to appear here.

Part of what Foundation Gold sells is a savings habit: $750 set aside over a year. You can build the same habit in your own savings account, where the money stays yours to use whenever you need it. Lodavo gives you free tickets in a weekly cash draw for every $25 you have saved, so your savings come with a chance to win. If you want to know how our own app holds up to these questions, read whether Lodavo is safe and legit and our security page.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.