Open Banking: Your Data, Your Control
- Andrea Thompson
- Feb 10
- 2 min read
Ok, I'm really excited.
Maybe it's just the data nerd in me talking, but... is open banking FINALLY HERE?!
Canada just confirmed that Open Banking is officially launching in 2026. (Phase 1. Phase 2 to come in 2027).
Really? I'm not sure. But I'm taking it at face value (for now), because with this winter, I honestly need reasons to be excited.
For years I've been using Mint (RIP), Monarch Money (for myself and with clients), Wealthica, Flinks, you name it. You log in and half your accounts are disconnected (for instance right now, I can't seem to reconnect with Wealthsimple to Monarch for the life of me!). I'm constantly re-entering passwords, fixing broken links, and dealing with laggy "screen scraping".
Personally and with my clients, I've always tried to be as current as possible to provide an up to date big picture view of what's actually happening. Well, I’m genuinely excited to say that the game is finally changing.
Adios, broken connections. We get to decide which apps have a direct, secure pipe to our account data.
Second, it's a massive security win. You won't have to share your passwords with third party apps anymore. You just authorize through your bank portal and you're good to go.
But for me as a planner, the best part is what this does for our work with clients. We’ll be able to see live data without the administrative headaches for our clients. No more asking for statements, doc uploads, reauthentication frustrations. We can provide much more timely and accurate recommendations based on what's actually happening as opposed to what happened 2, 3, 6 months ago.
It’s about time we moved from banks "owning" our data to us actually controlling it. 2026 will be huge for planners or advisors taking advantage of their tech stacks that support this technology, and I can't wait to see how it raises the bar for us all!
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