Canadian FinTech leaders “cautiously optimistic” about open banking, payments modernization under Mark Carney

With Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent election, Canadian FinTech leaders are “cautiously optimistic” that Canada now has a head of government who cares about their policy priorities. They also acknowledged that FinTech might not be at the top of his to-do list.

At the Payments Canada Summit last week in Toronto, FinTech leaders BetaKit spoke with lauded Carney’s experience and expressed the belief that he is the right person to finally see through the long-awaited modernization of Canada’s financial services infrastructure through initiatives like open banking and a Real-Time Rail (RTR) payment system.

“We have someone in the Prime Minister’s Office who knows the ins and outs of these sorts of initiatives.”
Alex Vronces,
Fintechs Canada

Much to the chagrin of Canadian FinTech, the country’s previous Liberal government failed to fully deliver on its promises to implement open banking and RTR. Open banking, which falls under the feds’ purview, would let consumers securely share financial data with third-party FinTech firms, while RTR—led by Payments Canada with oversight from the Government of Canada—aims to facilitate faster, cheaper payments for Canadian companies and consumers. Both initiatives have been repeatedly delayed over the span of several years.

The case for their optimism is tied to Carney’s CV: while the prime minister made a name for himself by guiding Canada’s banking sector through the 2008 financial crisis as Governor of the Bank of Canada, he also has a history of supporting and ushering in FinTech innovation.

“The thing that really sticks out to me is that we have someone in the Prime Minister’s Office who knows the ins and outs of these sorts of initiatives,” Fintechs Canada executive director Alex Vronces told BetaKit.

As Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, Carney helped modernize the payments system and implement open banking in the United Kingdom (UK), overseeing what Exit North Ventures general partner and Canadian Fintech newsletter creator Tal Schwartz described as “a pretty transformational period” for the country that also supported the emergence of global FinTech players like Revolut and Wise. Carney also spent time serving on the board of American FinTech giant Stripe.

“I think Carney is the guy,” Wealthsimple vice-president of payments strategy and chief compliance officer Hanna Zaidi told BetaKit. “He’s seen what is possible and what the outcomes are.”

Open banking primer

Canada has been on a long and winding path toward open banking since 2018. This collection of stories will catch you up on progress to date:

Vronces argued that Carney understands the challenges and risks associated with open banking and payments modernization and how to manage them, and expects this will make him more immune to what he called “deceptive lobbying tactics,” adding, “I couldn’t say that with the same level of confidence about the last government as I can this one.”

Whether Carney will actually prioritize or expedite the work remains to be seen. Council of Canadian Innovators president Ben Bergen argued that open banking and RTR are “a piece in the puzzle” to addressing Canada’s productivity woes, but said whether they are “the next big piece” for Carney’s government is still to be determined.

FinTech and mentions of open banking and RTR were absent from the Liberal platform during the campaign, and FinTech leaders expect the prime minister’s first order of business is to contend with pressing economic threats posed by United States tariffs under President Donald Trump.

BetaKit has reached out to Carney’s office and the Department of Finance for comment on where FinTech initiatives like open banking and RTR rank on his government’s list of priorities.

Vronces is unconcerned that neither featured in Carney’s platform, since neither are new policies.

“The thing we can accuse the last Liberal government of doing poorly is recycling the same announcements over and over and over again without any real progress,” he said, noting he would rather see the Department of Finance given the mandate and room to continue its work.

“I said a while ago that the time for announcements was done … The time now is for implementation,” Vronces said.

Much of the policy work on open banking and RTR is already complete. The Government of Canada has passed and enacted the first half of their open banking framework, but have yet to table the second. The Liberals’ 2024 Fall Economic Statement (FES) brought more delays on open banking, as did the sudden change in federal leadership departure of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland last year and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in early January.

The FES did not include any information about RTR. The biggest legislative component of RTR is amending the Canadian Payments Act to permit FinTech firms to access RTR once it is built. The feds have done this, and the industry is waiting for those amendments to come into force.

However, most of the people BetaKit spoke with acknowledged Carney probably has bigger fish to fry before FinTech. “The geopolitical trade issues have to be priorities one, two, and three,” Electronic Transactions Association executive vice-president Scott Talbott told BetaKit.

That is not the only reason for skepticism. Old scars remain, as years of delays and unfulfilled promises mean Canada continues to wait for open banking and RTR. “We’re always one day closer,” Schwartz told BetaKit.

Canada’s FinTech community has repeatedly criticized and publicly lamented the slow development and rollout of both initiatives. The country’s path to open banking began with a review announced in the 2018 federal budget; seven years later, it has yet to become a reality. Meanwhile, public purpose non-profit organization Payments Canada—which is developing the RTR but reports to the Government of Canada—began laying the groundwork for the country’s new payments system in 2015. A decade later, it remains under development.

“The industry as a whole is probably a little bit jaded after being promised payments modernization and open banking for like, the last decade—and rightfully so,” Schwartz said.

“The industry as a whole is probably a little bit jaded … and rightfully so.”

The update Payments Canada provided at the Summit on the RTR did not include a timeline for when it might fully launch—but noted the technical build of the RTR is 60 percent complete and on target to be finished during Q3 2025, and is expected to be ready for testing later this year.

Schwartz expressed skepticism that Carney would race to implement any FinTech policies “that could potentially unsettle or upset the banks,” given his experience and the current geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty.

While most of the FinTech leaders BetaKit spoke with expect Carney to remain involved with the Department of Finance given his expertise, they also expressed that who Carney selects as finance minister when he names his cabinet tomorrow could ultimately be as important as his own beliefs and track record when it comes to financial innovation.

Despite these caveats, Vronces said the Department of Finance’s willingness to listen and tangible evidence of progress since 2023 on open banking, and the specificity in Payments Canada’s recent RTR communications relative to prior messaging have inspired confidence.

“I wouldn’t say I’m naive—there are plenty of ways things could go wrong; there are plenty of risks that could materialize that would just deprioritize and delay this stuff even more—[but] when I look at what we have, we have way more than we’ve ever had before, and that should be a reason for cautious and marginally more optimism,” Vronces said.

Feature image courtesy Payments Canada.