Wealthsimple announced a dozen new banking, investing, and AI products and features today at the Toronto FinTech company’s latest showcase.
The most significant is Penny, an AI assistant that any Wealthsimple user will soon be able to leverage to not only better understand their financial situation, but also to make moving their money around and placing trades easier. Wealthsimple senior director and head of AI products Sam Newman-Bremang and vice-president of investing products Swapnil Parikh revealed the news to BetaKit in a joint interview ahead of Thursday’s event.
“We’re expanding our product suite across every line.”
Swapnil Parikh, Wealthsimple
Wealthsimple revealed Penny and other offerings Thursday at Toronto’s Massey Hall during the fourth edition of its biannual Wealthsimple Presents series, titled “Something Good Is Going to Happen,” to reflect the company’s belief in the future it can deliver using technology.
“This is a step in showing that we’re working on everything,” Parikh said. “We’re expanding our product suite across every line.”
Last week, Wealthsimple announced a $425-million CAD Series F round from existing backers at a whopping $13.8-billion valuation on the back of some major growth. The profitable firm now serves more than four million Canadians and oversees more than $169 billion in total assets under administration.
“Today, people can live their whole financial lives on Wealthsimple, and we’re seeing more and more Canadians choose us,” Wealthsimple co-founder and CEO Michael Katchen told BetaKit at the time.
Parikh said yesterday that this fundraise reflects the firm’s desire to grow and bring new products to market faster, and will provide the fuel it needs to deliver the banking, investing, and AI offerings and functionality its users demand.
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Penny’s launch comes as personal AI agents become increasingly popular and raise heightened security concerns. With Penny, Wealthsimple aims to provide its clients with an in-app chatbot they can ask questions about their finances to and use to complete many of the steps associated with transferring and investing their money, from sending e-transfers to paying bills and planning contributions to various accounts. Penny stops just short of actioning these decisions without manual sign-off. The AI assistant will be broadly available by late 2026 or early 2027.
“It’s really the first time we’ve been able to meet Canadians and have that one-to-one conversation with them, in a way,” Newman-Bremang said. He noted that Penny will also help Wealthsimple clients “remove a lot of the overhead around actually doing things with your money.” Both are capabilities that Newman-Bremang said advance Wealthsimple’s quest to make managing your finances “simpler, easier, and more accessible” for Canadians.
Canada’s largest banks recently committed to blocking AI agents from directly accessing their customers’ online banking information, but while Wealthsimple shares the sentiment, it isn’t quite following suit. “Just like the big banks are saying, we don’t think clients should give their ID [and credentials] out to [a third-party] agent,” Newman-Bremang said.
However, for customers who aren’t satisfied with Penny alone, Wealthsimple is working to help them more securely connect with outside AI systems like Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT by ensuring they keep greater control over what accounts, information, and money those agents can access, plus retain ultimate sign-off. These integrations will become broadly available early next year, with more to come over time.
“It’s really the first time we’ve been able to meet Canadians and have that one-to-one conversation with them.”
Sam Newman-Bremang, Wealthsimple
“One of the biggest issues with AI is that you’re just handing over a login to some chatbot, [and] now it can do anything with your money,” Parikh said. “We built this from a security lens. Customers actually approve every action.”
These AI moves come as one of Wealthsimple’s biggest Canadian competitors, fellow Toronto firm Questrade, also looks to remake its platform for the age of AI.
“Optimism is believing that things will get better,” Wealthsimple co-founder and CPO Brett Huneycutt said on stage. “Agency is believing that you can make them better. You need both, and we’re living in a moment where those two traits are more accessible than ever before. With new tools, especially AI, it has never been easier to go out and build the world that you want to see.”
Wealthsimple said 1,000 people gathered in-person and 700,000 registered to tune in virtually for Thursday’s showcase. The event, which was prefaced by a live band, was the largest and flashiest Wealthsimple Presents to date, and saw the company gift cash to help its clients meet their financial goals throughout the presentation.
While the inaugural Wealthsimple Presents in June 2025 took aim at the country’s big banks with the firm’s first credit card, an expanded chequing account, and line of credit, the company’s second event that October targeted investing with more advanced tools. Both were held at Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works. The third edition, held this May in Calgary, followed that up with more banking offerings for families and businesses.
Newman-Bremang said those three events were “about launching all of the things that Canadians wanted.” While today’s showcase also brings more of the same, this time around, Wealthsimple put more attention on how its users interact with all of its products.
One of the core ways Wealthsimple aims to do that is with its revamped mobile app, which the firm claims it rebuilt “from scratch” with the help of the Fey team, and will be available in early 2027 for iOS and Android users. “It’s extremely customizable,” Parikh said. “It’s super fast.”
Wealthsimple has also promised Wealthsimple Pro, a new, advanced trading suite for active investors that’s separate from its core platform and can execute faster. Parikh characterized it as the firm’s first foray into “technical trading.” That desktop product will be released in beta by the end of November.
“We have historically focused on simplicity and ease of use, but as we’ve grown our sophisticated trader base, they demanded this product, and so we’ve introduced a lot of complexity,” Parikh said.
The company is also expanding its offerings to reach more companies, a particularly fast-growing client segment, with a Wealthsimple Business credit card that has no foreign exchange fees and a one-percent cashback planned to be released by early 2027.
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Wealthsimple also shared plans to make a Canadian-dollar stablecoin, CADD, available through cryptocurrency accounts on its platform (pending final regulatory approval) and launch perpetual futures, commission-free CAD options, and temporary virtual cards with prescribed limits, which could help users ensure their AI agents access their money in a more controlled fashion.
On Wednesday, the Government of Canada also released draft regulations to ban banks from charging transfer fees, typically $150, for switching providers. This marks the first step towards fulfilling a promise the feds made in Budget 2025, and a change Wealthsimple had spent years advocating for given that it has been an obstacle for challengers to the country’s large banks.
“We’re incredibly grateful to the government for making this change,” Parikh said. “It’s going to be so helpful for people that signed up for an institution 10 [or] 15 years ago and want something better.”
Disclosure: Wealthsimple vice-president of payments strategy and chief compliance officer, Hanna Zaidi, sits on BetaKit’s board of directors.
Feature image courtesy Josh Scott for BetaKit.