Open Banking in Canada and the Globe

The introduction of open banking in Canada will have a profound impact on consumers as banks, FinTechs, and other service providers start introducing innovative products and services based on open access to data.

We discuss open banking successes across the globe, the current state of open banking in Canada and what the future holds, and how banks and FinTechs should collaborate to drive home the advantage of open banking. Watch this exciting episode of our Tech Talk featuring Hans Tesselaar, Executive Director, BIAN, Fatema Pirone, Senior Director for Enterprise Innovation, CIBC, and Piyush Pati, Senior Director, Banking & Financial Services, Virtusa.

Highlights from the conversation

Open banking successes across the globe

Open banking adoption is at different stages across the globe. It is driven by regulatory mandates in some regions, such as in the EU, UK, Canada, and Australia. In some others, encouraged by regulatory changes, open banking is being leveraged to promote financial inclusion in regions like South East Asia. Lastly, open banking adoption in countries like China and the USA is market-driven, encouraging innovation, competition, and cost reduction. The speed of adoption varies across these three buckets.

Factors contributing to open banking in Canada

Fueled by global activity, regulators, incumbents, FinTechs, and banks are looking at open banking successes worldwide. Some of the key imperatives are around managing and mitigating related consumer protection, cybersecurity, privacy, and determining the role the government would play in enabling open banking. Other factors include interconnectivity, open everything, connectivity of products and services aimed at driving more value to consumers.

Steps that banks and financial institutions can take now to accelerate the data-driven transformation

• Pay attention to data and privacy regulations and ensure safe practices
• Accurately identify customer expectations to offer relevant products and services
• Expose data to third parties within the confines of consent and governance
• Accelerate the adoption of standard API in a marketplace between banks and FinTechs
• Test and build capability that ensures trust and safety of consumer data

Finally, the key to open banking success in Canada and across the globe is to engage with consumers to bring them along the journey. No matter how transformative the data-driven solutions maybe, government bodies, banks, and financial institutions need to take appropriate steps to properly explain the workings of an open banking ecosystem and how consumers can benefit from this revolution.