With the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau intending to introduce regulations around open banking next year, Canada could potentially be the only G7 country without a system if it doesn’t move forward, Tachjian, the federal government’s appointed open banking lead, said at the Payments Canada Summit on Friday. “We run the risk of falling behind our peers,” he said. (The Logic)

Talking point: With a target launch date of September 2023 approaching, fintechs have been left feeling uncertain after the federal budget made no mention of open banking. Without an open-banking system, Canada runs the risk of not providing certain smaller financial institutions the proper tools to compete with larger peers “to address this information asymmetry that exists between larger and smaller organizations,” Tachjian said. “Our local fintech champions would probably run into a ceiling in terms of growth without being able to rely on data for their products and services.” He added that he’s on track to give the government recommendations so a framework can be presented this year.