[abdullahkhalids]

The Canadian government has been trying for about 4-5 years now to get Canadian banks to embrace Open Banking, which will allow these sorts of products to be built quickly.

The banks have consistently refused to do anything, because they don't want any change that threatens their oligopoly. Canadian bank services are more or less the same as they were a decade ago.

The current government will have to show that it can resist rich people lobbying in this regard, before any real change can happen.

[dmix]

Indeed, no one seems to ever talk about the banking monopoly in Canada so it's not a big political issue. It's not nearly as controversial as the telecom or airline monopolies.

There are some new banking startups popping up in Canada like Neo Financial (from the guys who made SkipTheDishes) but they are online-only and have limited integration with stuff like Plaid.

[hendo3000]

Just looked at their site, and the images all show Mastercard logos on the cards. Isn't this just middleware between me and Mastercard?

[stackedinserter]

Canadian banks still live in 2006. They can't even make EMT transfers more convenient, so people could request a payment or pay with QR.

Sometimes I feel like they don't actually refuse to do things, maybe they are not capable to improve. Something in their chain of command is broken and doesn't let them change.