Wealthsimple is launching an artificial intelligence assistant that can help customers send money, manage investments and plan their finances, as Canada’s major banks move to block third-party AI agents from accessing their systems over security concerns. 

The fintech’s new AI assistant, Penny, can prepare e-transfers, wire transfers and stock trades and help clients plan contributions to their registered investment accounts, all within Wealthsimple, it announced at a Toronto event Thursday.

But unlike most autonomous AI agents, like Meta’s Muse, Penny cannot independently navigate the internet or require customers to share their banking passwords. It also requires customers to approve any payments, transfers or trades before they are executed.

“We’re not talking about autonomous action,” Jordan Deutsch, Wealthsimple’s director of software development, said in an interview. “We’re talking about you in the driver’s seat with an assistant that takes away a lot of the friction.”

Penny’s launch comes roughly a week after most of Canada’s major banks moved to restrict third-party AI agents from accessing customer accounts over security and liability concerns, following similar resistance from major U.S. lenders. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions has urged financial institutions to strengthen oversight of AI systems, including verifying AI agents’ identities and restricting their access to sensitive information.

Despite those restrictions, Deutsch said Canadians are already using AI agents, and Wealthsimple wanted to offer a safe and secure way to use them for financial transactions. 

Deutsch said Penny cannot independently access accounts at other financial institutions or use screen scraping, a practice in which third-party services log into customers’ bank accounts to retrieve financial information. Screen scraping violates the terms of service of some major Canadian banks, but lenders have generally been reluctant to block it outright because many customers rely on financial apps that use it.

Instead, Penny can access a subset of financial data available within Wealthsimple, including information from accounts customers have linked through financial data aggregators, Deutsch said. For example, Penny can’t independently initiate a transfer from a customer’s account at another bank, but it can prepare an outgoing transfer from Wealthsimple for the customer to approve, she added.

Sam Newman-Bremang, Wealthsimple’s senior director of AI products, said in an interview the company began developing Penny about five to six months ago. The AI assistant uses a secure data feed which connects directly to Wealthsimple’s systems, letting it access financial information and prepare transactions without screen scraping. 

Wealthsimple also plans to let customers use OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude to access account information and prepare transactions starting in early 2027. Customers will be able to choose what level of access to grant the AI tools, but must still approve transactions. 

Deutsch and Newman-Bremang did not specify who would be responsible if AI made a mistake that cost a customer money, emphasizing that customers would retain final control over their transactions.

The rollout comes as the Toronto-based fintech seeks to compete more directly with Canada’s largest banks. CEO Michael Katchen recently told Bloomberg that the company wants to become the country’s biggest financial institution, with a new goal of reaching $1 trillion in assets under administration, up from $155.6 billion in the middle of this year.

Last week, Wealthsimple said it raised $425 million in a funding round led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, valuing it at $13.8 billion, up from $10 billion a year earlier.

Newman-Bremang said Wealthsimple was not trying to circumvent the banks’ restrictions, and that they deliberately designed Penny to require customer approval for transactions.

“If we provide Canadian consumers with more choice and a broader diversity of products, and ultimately products that people in other parts of the world have access to, we all win,” Deutsch said. 

Wealthsimple isn’t the only Canadian fintech opening the door to AI agents. Rival brokerage Questrade already lets clients connect their investment accounts to tools like ChatGPT and Claude, while Float Financial has deployed AI agents to automate business accounting tasks.

Newman-Bremang said Wealthsimple would welcome other financial institutions adopting similar technology and that that competition could give consumers wider access to AI-powered financial services. “We build the best product for the Canadian consumer, and then we watch the tides rise and the ships rise with them,” Deutsch said.