August 3, 2023, Washington, DC – The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) of North America submitted comments to Canada’s Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) as part of its pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2024 budget. Our submission stressed that Canada needs to remain diligent in its pursuit of an open banking framework which will provide Canadians much needed relief in banking fees and other expenses, that Canada must recognize that other countries are rapidly implementing their own open banking regimes, and remain keenly aware that every day that passes without open banking development risks leaving Canadians further behind their international counterparts and competitors.
Our letter also expressed disappointment with the lack of progress on the open banking file, and called on the government to:
- Include language in Budget 2024 to implement the recommendations that Open Banking Lead Abraham Tachjian will provide in his forthcoming final report and rapidly implement Canada’s open banking system, including funding for the development of a neutral, transparent, and nimble governance function;
- Include language in Budget 2024 outlining the government’s approach to open finance, the next logical step after open banking, and the framework needed to truly unlock market innovation and competition to benefit Canadian consumers and businesses; and
- Amend the Canadian Payments Act to enable Payments Canada to expand its membership to include federally regulated payment service providers, providing access to its forthcoming real-time payment system.
In the submission, we also asserted that any open banking governance entity in Canada must be neutral (i.e. not controlled by any particular stakeholder(s) with commercial interests in the ecosystem), transparent (i.e. it invites and considers stakeholder input and subjects its decisions to an open, publicly visible process), and nimble (i.e. capable of making binding decisions relatively quickly and without undue bureaucracy), with all stakeholders in the open banking system agreeing to comply with the decisions and determinations made by the open banking governance entity as a condition of being active in the market.
A full copy of the submission is available here.