Ben: Plaid has operated in the Canadian market for a little over two years, and we have partnerships with some of the larger fintech firms out there. Of course, over the past year, we’ve been heavily involved in consultations with the government and specifically the Ministry of Finance, as it has moved closer to establishing a formal open banking scheme. We are deeply interested in playing a role and making sure that the developments that take place move the industry forward and not backward — this has really been our tagline throughout these consultations. Rob, of course, we met via the work at the Standards Council, which is just another example of the coordination that is taking place in Canada to make sure that we move toward an innovative economy. Things are really in lock step and consumers are ultimately the beneficiaries.

Ben: I think timing is a really key element to any regulations that are coming out in Canada. We are starting to see developments around data portability, and also payments modernization and Digital IDs. These need to sync, with open finance as the first mover. And for this to work, open finance needs to have a broad scope of data. We did some research internally and what we found was that if the open banking scheme were to be set up to only allow transaction data to be incorporated, a significant number of use cases that are currently active would disappear. What we do not want to see is a two-tiered system where there is a limited amount of data that is included in the legislated data rights that everyone has access to; and then there’s other data types that consumers are already relying on to power their use cases, but suddenly they are either swept away or become increasingly costly because financial institutions decide that they want to monetize that data. The analogy that we’ve been harping on in the consultations with the Canadian Ministry of Finance, is that it is akin to the health care system: you have a set of rights that gives everyone access to health care, but additional services on top of that basic health care, can be available via specialists, at a fee. The same should apply in open banking. You should have a broad set of rights to your data.

What has been really encouraging throughout these consultations is that fintech companies want to be accredited. They do not want to be seen as playing out regulatory arbitrage or playing outside the bounds; they want to be established and supervised and recognized as being significant and well-known players. And we do not want there to be any cutoff for the smallest new entrants so they cannot make it to the playing field. It is very encouraging to see all actors on board with this notion that, yes, we need more structure, we need more supervision. Canada has a tremendous opportunity to make the leap from fast follower to global leader in data portability. We are very excited to do our part in building out this ecosystem.

“The traditional construct of work may have shifted for good—given the recent COVID 19 events—in favour of increased personal latitude in the way work is achieved. The gig economy is a precursor to the changing nature of work, requiring a deeper reflection on the work environment and social support mechanisms that favour flexible and an increasingly fractional labour market,” said Namir Anani, ICTC President & CEO.