Federal government says it will move open banking forward at ‘earliest opportunity'
Open banking — or consumer-driven banking, as Ottawa calls it — is about allowing Canadians and businesses to securely share their financial data with third parties other than their banks.
Open banking could let Canadians with multiple accounts across different banks see their entire financial picture on one convenient dashboard. It also could help renters build their credit scores just by paying their rent on time every month.
Other nations have implemented open banking systems and the federal Liberals passed initial legislation last year to break ground on open banking in Canada.
But getting to that point — and keeping up the pressure to get the second half of that legislation tabled — has been 'a slog,' said Fintechs Canada executive director Alex Vronces.
'I don't think the government at first understood really what consumer-driven banking was,' he said.
After years of study, Ottawa got the ball rolling on open banking through the legislation to implement the 2024 federal budget roughly a year ago.
That bill gave the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada a mandate to head up the country's open banking framework. Legislation is still required to implement a plan to accredit service providers and set the common rules that financial institutions will have to follow.
The Liberal government said in the 2024 fall economic statement that it's looking at early 2026 for implementation of open banking.
But Canada has gone through a federal election since those plans were made — and while the Liberals were returned to power with another minority government, references to consumer-driven banking were absent from the party's election platform.
And the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney did not table a spring budget, which it normally would use to outline its legislative priorities.
Natacha Boudrias, leader of the National Bank of Canada's open banking strategy, said the industry lacks 'clarity' on the future shape of consumer-driven banking. She said the spring election likely stalled movement on the file.
'We're certainly hoping that the government is going to kick-start the effort sooner rather than later so that we don't get stuck in a loop of consultation,' she said.
A Finance Canada official said in a media statement that the government is still committed to consumer-driven banking.
'The remaining elements of the consumer-driven banking framework will be introduced at the earliest opportunity, to ensure that Canadian consumers and business can securely benefit from tools that help them reduce costs and improve their financial outcomes,' the statement says.
Instead of waiting on Ottawa, the National Bank has moved forward on its own open-banking framework that lets fintechs — financial technology firms that develop apps for Canadians and businesses — essentially plug into their databases to share information securely when users give their permission.
The status quo for financial data sharing is 'screen scraping,' a process that usually sees an individual share banking credentials with a third party to access the information an app needs to run.
But Boudrias said there's no control over how much or how little data is shared through screen scraping — it's all or nothing, making it a potential privacy nightmare.
Open banking ideally takes that firehose of data and narrows it, giving users control over the information a fintech sees and how long it can access it.
'It's about putting the rails of trust in place,' Boudrias said.
Financial Consumer Agency of Canada commissioner Shereen Benzvy Miller addressed the risks of screen scraping in notes for her keynote address at the Open Banking Expo in Toronto on Tuesday.
Benzvy Miller said Canadians are already sharing data widely with fintechs but they may not know much about the privacy risks involved. She said part of the agency's task will be to drive consumer awareness of open banking to build trust.
'We envision a future — not far off — where consumers can securely share their financial data with trusted providers at the tap of a button,' she said in a copy of the speech shared with The Canadian Press.
The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada will be in charge of building and vetting a public registry of fintechs that Canadians and financial service providers can trust to handle data securely. These fintechs will be granted a handy visual logo to mark their accreditation.
Benzvy Miller said the agency is also working with Finance Canada on setting out common rules for the system and the agency is looking forward to seeing legislative amendments from the finance minister.
But if that final legislation isn't tabled soon, Vronces said, the agency will be stuck in 'regulatory purgatory.'
'They'll have a mandate but they won't be able to do anything with it,' he said.
Getting to this point has been a long haul for Vronces, who has been lobbying on behalf of Canadian fintechs for roughly seven years.
He said he has reasons to believe Carney will be a champion of consumer-driven banking. Carney was governor of the Bank of England when the United Kingdom introduced such a system in 2017.
The opportunity to implement open banking comes as a pivotal time, Vronces said, as Carney looks to overhaul the Canadian economy and improve productivity in the face of global trade upheaval.
Monday Mornings
The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week.
Open banking could light a fire under Canada's financial sector, he said, because big banks would be forced to diversify their services and compete with the wider fintech industry.
Vronces said early conversations with the federal government give him hope that the second half of the legislation will be tabled soon, possibly alongside the federal budget in the fall.
He compared the open banking file to a magazine that's already had the articles written and the layout set, with just a few finishing touches remaining.
'It's really not a lot of work for the government to complete its promise,' he said. 'It just needs to hit print.'
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
12 minutes ago
- CBC
Digital contracts are the norm today. Is there still power in a written signature?
Some of the most powerful people in the world can be recognized by their signatures. Prime Minister Mark Carney's signature adorns Canadian currency, from his time as head of the Bank of Canada. And U.S. President Donald Trump regularly displays his oversized, sloping signature for the cameras with each new executive order. But these days, it's far more common for most of us to sign our names on a touch screen, or to simply click a box on an online form, than to sign your name with a pen on paper. Author Christine Rosen isn't happy about it. "We're actively choosing to go back to a way of life where a mark is the same as a signature. So it's a devolution in terms of our skills as human beings," she told The Sunday Magazine's Peter Mitton. Rosen's book The Extinction of Experience looks at how the onslaught of digital life is hollowing out real-life experiences, like the act of physically signing your name. "I fear that our willingness to suspend that small, everyday action is sort of symbolic of some of the other important things we've discarded in our haste to embrace digitally mediated forms of communication," she said. Despite their relative rarity in most people's lives today — and the legal ambiguity that came with the introduction of electronic signatures — written signatures still carry power as a personal artistic expression, whether you've carefully designed your own or paid a professional to do it for you. E-signatures around for decades E-signatures are just over 25 years old in the U.S. In June 2000, then-U.S. president Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act into law. The act allowed for electronic records, including digital versions of a signature, to be used for business transactions that earlier required a person's written signature for validation. In Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which became law in April 2000, outlines the use of e-signatures. Provinces and territories have followed suit with similar legislation. John Gregory, a retired lawyer in Toronto, says when Clinton signed that bill, some worried that the signature's "ceremonial function" might lose some of its power. "It makes you take it seriously. Oh, jeez, I'm signing this. This is important. I should know what I'm doing. Do I really agree to this?" said Gregory, who previously worked in the U.S. on developing government policies around what happens legally when paper trails become increasingly digital. While personal opinions on an e-signature's weight may vary, the law has since moved on. Gregory pointed to a 2017 case in Saskatchewan where a man who injured himself in a go-kart crash said a digital waiver he signed by checking a box shouldn't absolve the company who owned the track of any liability. The court ruled that, in fact, that check was as valid as a pen-and-paper signature. And, in 2024, Saskatchewan's Court of King's Bench upheld a decision that a thumbs-up emoji was confirmation of a contract between two agricultural companies. One of the companies involved asked the Supreme Court of Canada to rule on that decision; it's unclear if the Court will do so. Do young people care about signatures? Filomena Cozzolino, 27, styled her signature after her paternal grandmother, with whom she shares her name. "When I was maybe 12 or 13, I found one of her IDs and I wanted to try to copy her signature," said the publishing and creative writing student at Sheridan College in Mississauga, Ont. "Not only do we share a name, but we can share our signatures, since she's no longer here to share hers anymore." Some of her classmates had a more business-like approach to them. "I have very messy handwriting, actually, because I'm left-handed. So everything smudges and ... once I learned cursive, just went with the flow," said Mikayla Nicholls, 28. Zainab Bakjsh, 24, writes her signature in Arabic, which she says looks better and is easier to write than when she does it in English. But beyond that, she's not given it much thought. "It's just a signature. When I need to do something at the bank, or like renewing my health card, is probably the only time that I sign," she said. Boutique signature craft While the age of correspondence via fountain pen on parchment may be long gone, there's still a niche of people interested in using signatures as a personal flourish — and even a market if you're looking for a professional to craft one for you. "I believe that your signature is literally your face. I mean, regardless of your profession, you can impress people around you with this beautiful signature," said Elena Jovanovic, head calligrapher at Florida-based MySign Studio. The business crafts custom signatures for patrons, offering options in multiple script styles. Their calligraphers will then teach you how to draw them on your own. But it'll cost you, with services ranging from $100 to $200 US. "Many people around the world create their first signature during their teenage years and continue to use it throughout their lives. Typically, these signatures lack creativity and elegance," Jovanovic said. Sometimes patrons request certain artistic effects, such as adding a lion or butterfly to the signature. Other requests are more esoteric. Jovanovic recalled one customer who asked that they customize his signature by introducing a four-letter profanity into his surname — presumably only for the signature, and not as part of a legal name change. "And I was like, why not?" she said.
CTV News
5 hours ago
- CTV News
CTV National News: New report finds grocery prices rise faster than inflation
Watch As food costs keep climbing, Canadians are adjusting their shopping habits. CTV's Josh Marano breaks down the latest report.
CTV News
5 hours ago
- CTV News
CTV National News: Canadians frustrated by delays and issues reaching CRA
Watch Mounting complaints over CRA delays are leaving many Canadians without access to money they're owed. CTV's Jeremie Charron reports.
