Overview

Open banking is a secure framework that will allow you to share financial data from your traditional bank with financial technology companies, such as Wealthsimple. While not yet available in Canada, the Government of Canada has taken the first steps to introduce this framework. Once they decide on the framework, each bank will be responsible for building the ability to access your data using this framework. The goal of open banking is to put you in control of your own financial data.

With open banking, you’ll authorize your bank to securely share your financial data with a financial technology app using an application programming interface (API). An API is a secure bridge that allows apps, websites, and services to safely share information and work together.

For more information, please visit the Government of Canada’s website: Open banking

Benefits of open banking

When open banking becomes available in Canada, it may give you more choices and improve how you manage your finances online and on your mobile device. It may also help increase financial innovation in Canada.

Open banking can provide you with several benefits, including:

• Greater control: You’ll be able to decide when, how, and to what extent your bank shares your information with third parties.
• More choices: Open banking may offer you secure access to new and innovative financial products and services.
• All in one place: You may be able to see all of your financial accounts and services in one place.

How open banking will improve your Wealthsimple experience

With open banking, Wealthsimple's money management products will get even better:

• Less refreshing and relinking: Open banking frameworks typically standardize how long links between bank accounts last. Today, each bank sets its own requirements, and they often require regular (some as often as daily) logins to refresh information. Open banking will improve the consistency of data retrieval and save you the hassle of relinking your accounts.
• More data: Today, each financial institution provides a different (and often incomplete) set of information about an account. Some provide investment holdings data, others have transactions, and some provide mortgage details. Open banking will improve the consistency of what data is provided and improve the quality and accuracy of the data.
• Better analyses: With this additional data, we'll be able to continue building better products that support historical analyses, future projections, and overall financial planning. This may unlock budget tracking functionality and provide a holistic view of your net worth.