Open Banking 3: Canada with Ben Harrison, Andrew Moor, & Daniel Eberhard | E161

The state of open banking in Canada.

In this 161st episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host is joined by Ben Harrison (Portag3 Ventures), Andrew Moor (EQ Bank), & Daniel Eberhard (KOHO) for part 3 of his series on Open Banking. This one is all about Canada!

Episode Highlights:

  • 0:57 – Andrew Moor introduces himself and EQ Bank.

  • 2:25 – Ben Harrison gives insight into his role at Portag3.

  • 3:58 – Daniel Eberhard introduces himself and CoHo’s mission.

  • 6:15 – What is the current state of Open Banking in Canada?

  • 9:00 – How does this round of conversations surrounding Open Banking differ from conversations in the past?

  • 12:49 – Jason discusses the unprecedented urgency around regulatory reforms in Canada right now.

  • 14:19 – What kind of consideration is Canada’s advisory committee taking from markets that have already implemented Open Banking?

  • 18:12 – Everyone discusses the lack of data rights for consumers in Canada.

  • 23:28 – What does Open Banking mean to the future of KOHO, EQ Bank, and Portag3?

  • 30:39 – Who will be making the decisions for consumers’ financial lives with Open Banking?

  • 32:39 – Is there a concern about focusing on solely quantitative data and ignoring qualitative data surrounding consumer lives?

  • 38:30 – Jason explains how quality goes down every time a company adds a new product.

  • 40:48 – What is the one thing that everyone needs to know about why we need Open Banking?

3 Key Points

  1. Currently, Canada’s 5 largest banks have the largest revenue to population ratio in the world, largely due to a sheer lack of competition.

  2. Unlike past conversations around Open Banking with the Canadian Minister of Finance, this time around there is an actual proposal.

  3. The fundamental push for Open Banking has been fueled by a lack of engagement by consumers. The hope is that Open Banking makes financial transactions and banking transparent and simple.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

  • “This is a way to unplug the power of some very large institutions and deliver more value to the entrepreneurial community...everyone should be aligned on this kind of thing.” – Andrew Moor

  • “The message that I take from the advisory committee’s work is they strongly believe that government absolutely needs to play an important role in designing the framework from a legislative standpoint.” – Ben Harrison

  • “The real gating factor is actually the approval and I think that’s always been the biggest risk to this process. And now we have a framework through which to shape the discussion.” – Daniel Eberhard

  • “The general how we’re going to do this hasn’t necessarily been fully addressed yet. It’s more so we need to do this.” – Jason Pereira

  • “It is really hard to be good at tons of things.” – Jason Pereira

 

Resources Mentioned:

Fintech ImpactJason PereiraOpen Banking