Canada’s open banking framework will require banks to share account numbers, as well as information about the fees and interest rates on products and services, when a customer requests it, draft regulations released Friday afternoon show.
Catch up quickly: Open banking will require financial institutions to share data through a standardized feed at a customer’s request, making it easier to switch banks and use competing products. Despite being in the works for years, open banking has faced repeated delays and has been a flashpoint between banks and fintechs. Many digital financial services currently rely on screen scraping, which requires a customer to hand their online banking password over to a bot that impersonates them in order to copy transaction records and other data. Canada’s open banking framework promises to provide a more secure and reliable alternative.
Data scope details: Requiring banks to share account numbers upon request opens up the possibility of enabling payments through open banking. In the absence of open banking and the Real-Time Rail instant payments system—another long-delayed promise from Ottawa—fintechs have devised workarounds to get the data they need to function. Some use screen scraping to collect customers’ account numbers, which can then be used to initiate low-cost EFT payments directly from the bank. Patrick McKenzie, a fintech consultant and author of the Bits about Money newsletter, argues that the prospect of enabling direct digital payments from bank accounts for close to free is the main reason U.S. banks have fought open banking so fiercely.
Banks will also be required to provide information about the terms and conditions under which they offer products and services, including the fees they charge and the interest rates they offer. Competitors could use that information to offer products at a better deal.
Cost-benefit analysis: The draft guidelines also include new details about how much Ottawa expects the framework to cost and the economic benefit it’s expected to provide. Implementing open banking is expected to cost $457.7 million over the next decade. Banks, fintechs and other industry participants are expected to bear the vast majority of that cost, with the Bank of Canada—the institution in charge of overseeing the framework—paying about $1.4 million. Over the same 10-year period, Ottawa estimates open banking will create at least $13.2 billion in economic benefits.
What’s next? Canada still doesn’t have a launch date for open banking, and the draft regulations suggest Ottawa is unlikely to meet its pledge of going live this year. The draft regulations say they are expected to come into force within one year of final publication, and a 60-day consultation period is underway. That means the earliest they could be finalized is the fall.