Wealthsimple is pushing into business banking as it steps up its challenge to Canada’s big banks, launching a suite of products and services aimed at entrepreneurs including chequing accounts and lines of credit.

The Toronto fintech announced the expansion at an event in Calgary Thursday. In a release, it took aim at competing services offered by Canada’s big banks, saying “small businesses often pay higher fees for basic banking services while receiving less value than larger enterprises.” Wealthsimple is offering interest rates of up to 2.25 per cent on business chequing account deposits. 

The company has quietly offered business chequing accounts since March. Christine Robson, business products lead, said in an interview the accounts have proven popular with entrepreneurs in marketing, software, law and medicine. The move builds on Wealthsimple’s 2025 launch of a suite of products traditionally associated with retail banking, such as credit cards, loans and even old-fashioned cheques. 

Earlier this month, Wealthsimple said its first quarter assets under administration climbed 71 per cent year on year to nearly $125 billion. That’s a long way off from CEO Michael Katchen’s goal of hitting $1 trillion by 2034 to rival the country’s biggest banks, however. Businesses represent a significant new sector for Wealthsimple to court. “Small business is a really big market,” Robson said. “It’s definitely an opportunity to grow the pie.” Wealthsimple is privately held and doesn’t disclose which segments of its business generate the most revenue. 

Still, the company’s business banking offering lacks one feature central to many entrepreneurs: broad access to credit. Wealthsimple touts its low fees and frictionless online services as reasons for business customers to bank with it, but its business line of credit requires entrepreneurs to use their investments as collateral, with no other lending products yet available.

Robson acknowledged that “there’s some clients that we can’t serve right now,” adding that Wealthsimple is making a deliberate choice not to focus on lending.

The company has expanded its offerings significantly over the past year. In October, it rolled out a suite of advanced investing tools aimed at sophisticated traders. In April, it partnered with X on a new “cashtags” feature, which directs Canadians who click on stock, ETF and crypto ticker symbols in posts to its app, where they can trade them. In March, Wealthsimple received the regulatory green light to one day offer prediction markets trading, a fast-growing category that lets users bet on the outcome of real-world events that has historically been heavily restricted in Canada.

While Wealthsimple’s client assets grew in the first quarter, majority shareholder Power Corp. has kept its valuation of the fintech flat. The investment vehicle for Montreal’s wealthy Desmarais family disclosed last week that it hasn’t changed the value of its 52.4 per cent stake in Wealthsimple since it raised $750 million at a $10-billion valuation last fall.

On a call with analysts, Keith Potter, CFO of Wealthsimple shareholder and Power Corp. subsidiary IGM Financial, described the fintech’s latest quarter as “exceptional” particularly as valuations across the fintech sector have come under pressure amid a downturn in crypto markets and trading activity.

IGM Financial CEO James O’Sullivan also dismissed concerns about stock trading giant Robinhood’s planned entry to Canada once its acquisition of Toronto crypto firm WonderFi—expected this year—closes. “There will be competition to be sure. There will be new entrants to be sure. But I can’t think of a business that’s better positioned to face the marketplace and deliver for clients than Wealthsimple,” he said.