Accelerating Open Banking in Canada
Collaboration between industry and government stakeholders will enable sustainable success for an Open Banking system designed to meet Canada’s unique needs. supplied
Canadian business solutions provider Symcor has long enabled some of Canada’s leading organizations in facilitating secure data exchanges to support industry-wide needs. From accelerating fraud detection for governmental COVID-19 emergency response benefits, to maintaining service-level excellence despite rapidly changing market conditions, Symcor has established its reputation as a trusted and resilient partner over its 26-year history.
As the country advances on its Open Banking journey, Symcor remains a strong supporter of the value that a “made-in-Canada” approach can bring to support Open Banking within the Canadian market.
Global learnings
As Canada progresses towards establishing an Open Banking ecosystem that provides Canadians with greater control over their financial data, a “made-in Canada” approach founded on collaboration between industry and government stakeholders, with a focus on meeting consumer needs, will facilitate sustainable success.
Open Banking has the ability to reduce friction in customer experiences, maintain and enhance data security, and enable a broader spectrum of innovative services for end consumers. Markets around the world have adopted varying approaches to Open Banking and encountered both hurdles and opportunities along the way. Some of the major challenges involved the substantial effort and time required to construct common technical standards and protocols for data transfer, to streamline inter-organizational processes, and to establish frameworks for upholding the security and privacy of consumer data, including consumer data rights and consent granularity.
Learning from these markets, Canadian stakeholders have made strides by demonstrating collaboration and joining forces to launch entities like FDX Canada, which provides technical standards based on holistic input from industry participants. The Canadian Open Banking working groups are currently conducting discussions resulting from the final report of the Advisory Committee on Open Banking – accreditation, liability, privacy and security – steering Canada towards a clear roadmap for the implementation of an Open Banking framework and related regulations1.
Key learnings from other markets can be applied as industry stakeholders meet with government to discuss a uniquely Canadian perspective:
Collaborative approach to enhancing security: Open Banking is intended to implement a more secure framework for data sharing via the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) – a marked step forward from screen scraping and credential sharing, where consumers supply their banking login details to third parties who then “scrape” the transaction data from online banking. In addition, Canadian stakeholders should consider a collaborative approach to fraud detection and prevention. Sharing insights and patterns can provide a unique opportunity to address common threat vectors across stakeholders and ultimately better protect consumers.
Consumer experience at the core: Several industry groups have discussed the need for clear and consistent consent-management language to be leveraged across stakeholders. Other markets have seen challenges with consumer drop-off due to differences in the approaches and experiences for consumers in capturing and managing consent.
Accelerating innovation in the market: Innovation after implementation has often lagged in markets that have taken an overly prescriptive approach, leading to a situation where organizations await “rules to be written” before embarking on the innovation journeys resulting from Open Banking. An approach that provides the right guidelines, while encouraging industry collaboration in Canada, may achieve a faster realization of both industry and government goals.
Accelerating open banking readiness
Symcor is committed to supporting Canada’s ever-evolving financial services landscape with deep expertise in aligning industry stakeholders and addressing their common needs through scalable solutions.
To view this report on The Globe's website, visit globeandmail.com
To view the full report as it appeared in The Globe's print edition: Open Banking