Late last month, Canada took a significant step toward implementing open banking with the royal assent of Bill C-69, officially enshrining the framework into law. Open banking will allow Canadians to control and share their financial data with third-party providers, ultimately benefiting from a wider range of financial services. While the framework has yet to be fully launched, many startups, scale-ups, and financial institutions have been preparing for the last six years.

Saba Shariff, Chief Strategy, Product, and Innovation Officer for Symcor, highlights that the next 12-18 months are crucial for Canada. Data is at the heart of open banking, and its proper use is essential for fostering greater competition and innovation in financial services. Companies providing or receiving this data must meet regulatory, technical, security, and operational guidelines. Symcor plays a crucial role as a data intermediary, facilitating secure and efficient data sharing between banks and third-party providers through its COR.CONNECT platform.

BetaKit recently interviewed Saba Shariff about the state of open banking in Canada and the role data intermediaries like Symcor can play. The recent enactment of open banking laws in Canada is a significant milestone, marking the necessary first step. Shariff is particularly excited about Canada’s made-in-Canada, hybrid open banking solution, which is designed to benefit consumers. The industry is already in motion, with efforts to enable secure data access and put forward standards for consideration by the government. Symcor is offering out-of-the-box solutions to help organizations prepare and enable data exchange securely.

Currently, between six to nine million Canadians share their credentials with third parties through screen-scraping, posing significant security risks. Without a common open banking system ensuring proper consent and controlled data usage, data can be compromised and misused, contrary to Canadians’ preferences for privacy.

Shariff believes that competition and collaboration are two sides of the same coin. Competition leads to powerful use cases, financial innovation, and consumer benefits. Symcor supports competition by ensuring that authorized entities have access to data securely and efficiently. Collaboration, on the other hand, is essential for scaling open banking effectively. Unlike other jurisdictions where open banking readiness has been driven by strict laws and regulations, Canada aims for a more collaborative approach to scale open banking faster, better, and more cost-effectively.

For data providers, the main challenge is making sense of the requirements for building APIs according to yet-to-be-fully-determined standards. They face questions about rules, liability, and operational readiness, which can take 18 to 24 months to resolve independently. Symcor aims to streamline this process by leveraging its expertise as a data exchange intermediary.

Data recipients, such as FinTech companies, need to transition from screen scraping to accessing data in a more secure and streamlined manner. Many FinTech companies are currently hindered by inconsistent, unsafe, and unscalable data access, preventing them from bringing innovative products to market.

Symcor, with over 25 years of experience as a trusted technology provider, is preparing for open banking through its COR.CONNECT platform. This platform supports open banking readiness by providing secure and streamlined access for both data providers and recipients. Built with Privacy by Design principles, Symcor ensures compliance with regulations and consumer expectations regarding consent and privacy. The platform helps organizations avoid the time, cost, and risk of preparing for open banking independently, allowing them to focus on servicing their customers and bringing innovative products to market.

The next 12-18 months are crucial, with significant progress expected as guidelines have been provided by the government. Full implementation of open banking in Canada is anticipated by the end of 2025. Organizations like Symcor, along with other industry participants, are working together to support and accelerate the development of a made-in-Canada, hybrid solution.

Overall, the implementation of open banking in Canada promises to bring about enhanced competition and innovation in financial services, with data intermediaries like Symcor playing a pivotal role in ensuring secure and efficient data exchange.