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Open banking holds the potential to innovate financial services and boost convenience for consumers, business and society. Approaches vary around the world, with some nations opting for industry to lead the shift and others preferring more regulatory involvement. What open banking framework holds the most appeal for Canada, and what opportunities, challenges and considerations must industry stakeholders address?
The Globe and Mail will present a half-day event in Ottawa on October 18 to provide financial service professionals, tech innovators, business, policy and consumer advocates with an update and potential action plan for open banking implementation.
The Honourable Colin Deacon
Senator, Nova Scotia
Rita Trichur
Senior Business Writer and Columnist, The Globe and Mail
As open banking continues to take shape in Canada, the financial services industry, regulators and fintech innovators are attuning to new opportunities for business growth, product development and customer engagement. How is open banking reshaping business and regulatory models in other jurisdictions? This presentation will cover big picture economic and regulatory opportunities for open banking in Canada.
Alexander Vronces,
Executive Director, Paytechs of Canada Association
Stephane Bousquet
Leader, Open Banking and Digital ID, National Bank of Canada
Emma Purdy
Senior Partner, Management Consultant, Global Governance Advisors
James Bradshaw
Banking Reporter, The Globe and Mail
Open banking proponents, consumers, regulators and the broader financial services industry agree governance is key to the transition and to long-term success. This interview will focus on current ideas and recommendations for open banking governance in Canada to help ensure an inclusive and accountable system.
Interac Corp. empowers Canadians to transact digitally with confidence by providing payment and value exchange services. As a leader developing the future of money, data, and verification, security is the core of everything we do. Through our world-class privacy, fraud mitigation, governance, and verification and authentication expertise, we help keep Canadian customers safe and secure when transacting. With nearly 300 financial institutions connected to our network, Canadians choose Interac products over 20 million times a day to exchange money. Interac champions workplace culture and corporate citizenship based on the principles of responsibility, diversity and inclusion. We are proud to be one of Canada's leading and most trusted financial brands.
It all started in Waterloo Region with a group of entrepreneurs who joined forces to help each other build successful companies. They saw the need for a community to help ensure the future prosperity of Canada, and Communitech was born. Today, we are Canada’s tech supercharger. Still guided by a mission to help founders start, grow and succeed, we are a supportive community at every stage of the founder journey. We provide accelerated opportunities for startups, scale-ups and at-scale companies to access talent, capital and sales.
We help founders:
- Hire and retain the smartest, brightest and most experienced team
- Access growth financing at every stage
- Sell to the biggest customers at home, and then around the world
- Connect the right people at the right time – peers who have been there before, coaches who can guide them through the difficult spots and partners from all over Canada
While we’re headquartered in Waterloo Region, our goal is to help grow companies that will create jobs and prosperity for Canada.
Rita Trichur is an award-winning journalist. She is a Senior Business Writer and Columnist in the Report on Business. Her previous roles at The Globe and Mail include Senior Editor, Financial Services Editor, and Canadian business columnist for the Report on Business Magazine. Rita returned to Globe in July 2016 after spending about 2 ½ years as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal’s Canada bureau. She primarily covered domestic banks and insurance companies from Toronto, but also wrote a variety of other stories about Canada for the U.S. newspaper. Prior to WSJ, Rita spent more than three years at the Globe, initially working as a general assignment reporter in the Report on Business before covering the telecom beat. Rita has also covered financial services and economics for the Toronto Star, and has held various roles at the Canadian Press and the Ottawa Sun. She got her first byline at age 6 when the Toronto Star published her short story about a fish-stealing cat and paid her $10. Rita, who also speaks French, was born in Toronto. She has a Bachelor of Journalism and Political Science and a M.A. in Canadian Studies – both from Carleton University in Ottawa.
James Bradshaw is the Banking Reporter for Report on Business. Since early 2017, he has covered the country's largest banks as well as other prominent financial services firms and fintechs. Over more than a decade reporting for The Globe, he also covered media from 2014 to 2016, and higher education from 2010 to 2014. Early in his career he covered cultural policy and news for Globe Arts, and was fortunate to win the Edward Goff Penny Memorial Prize, which recognizes the work from young journalists. He has also written for both the editorial page and the Toronto section. James grew up in Toronto and joined The Globe in fall of 2007, after cutting his teeth in journalism at the Queen's Journal while studying at university in Kingston, Ont.
Abraham Tachjian is Canada’s open banking lead, named by the Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Associate Minister of Finance, in March 2022. Mr. Tachjian has extensive experience related to open banking in Canada and internationally. He was a Director in the Financial Services practice at PwC Canada. He helped found Mox Bank, a new digital bank in Hong Kong, and was Director of Digital Banking of Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore where he was responsible for the implementation of emerging technologies.
Mr. Tachjian earned a B.A. from Concordia University, an LL.B in civil law from Université de Montréal, a J.D. in common law from University of Ottawa and a certificate in Chinese Law from China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He is a member of the Law Society of Ontario and the Barreau du Québec.
An international innovation strategist with a keen eye on emerging business models, Oscar Roque shows organizations how business purpose and social purpose are very complementary and can be used to thoughtfully disrupt for positive change.
Through the use of strategic foresight, inclusion by design, and delivery excellence, Oscar has led transformational initiatives in the areas of strategy, product management, partnerships, and consulting teams across multiple sectors such as financial services, banking, telco, and tech.
Today he is the VP of Strategy & Emerging Solutions at Interac Corp. where he leads enterprise strategy, ecosystem partnerships, and emerging solutions. He is responsible for identifying, exploring, and delivering new opportunities and products in areas including open banking, digital payments and value exchange, blockchain and fintech. Oscar also serves as a Fintech Program Advisor for Seneca College, and has previously served in other Board and Advisory capacities for the Financial Data Exchange, IBM’s Blockchain Platform, and Chamber of Digital Commerce.
With over 35 years of experience Debbie Gamble is one of Canada’s leading authorities on payments technologies impacting the digital economy. Her work with innovative technology has brought meaningful impact to society and she has been involved in initiatives including crypto currencies, contactless and mobile commerce, micro-finance, and digital ID on an international scale.
Debbie leads a team overseeing strategies in emerging technologies including digital identity, open banking, blockchain and AI. She spearheaded Interac’s acquisitions of 2Keys and the exclusive Canadian SecureKey Technologies’ solutions to advance digital identity across Canada. Debbie is an active supporter of Canada’s FinTech community and is passionate about how technology can be a catalyst for abundance.
Debbie champions collaboration across the industry, celebrates creativity and diversity of thought and has mentored several of her staff into award-winning sought-after industry experts. Debbie has also been recognized via several industry awards including, ‘Top 50 Canadian Executives’, ‘FemTech Leader of the Year’, ‘Most Influential Women in Payments’ and ‘Top 50 Women in FinTech’. Debbie is passionate about digital innovation, business transformation and driving the success of Canada’s digital economy.
Elizabeth is a partner in the Toronto office specializing in the regulation of financial institutions and other financial services providers, including banks, foreign banks, captive finance companies, payday lenders, insurance companies, trust companies, loan companies, participants in the payment card industry and fintechs. She has particular expertise in both federal and provincial consumer protection and cost of borrowing legislation, including the application of these laws in the online environment, and routinely assists clients with their retail product offerings.
Elizabeth frequently assists vehicle and equipment lessors and financiers in developing and modernizing their customer-facing agreements (consumer and commercial) and provides advice on motor vehicle dealer legislation. She also provides advice on debt collection, credit reporting, unclaimed property, anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism financing and sanctions laws.
Elizabeth was seconded to the retail banking group of a major Canadian bank in 2014.
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Cathy Ly leads the Customer Insights, Design Thinking, Customer Care and Digital Banking Back Office teams for Equitable Bank. Prior to her current role, Cathy worked for over a decade as a management consultant and also founded a start-up in the homewares industry. She holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management and an HBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business.
Andrew Graham is co-founder and CEO of Borrowell, one of Canada’s largest financial technology companies, with over two million users. Borrowell helps consumers find financial prosperity and make great decisions about their money. It was the first company in Canada to offer credit scores for free and offers products and recommendations across a consumer's financial journey. Borrowell has won numerous awards, including being named one of the top 100 fintech companies in the world by KPMG, one of the fifty fastest growing technology companies in Canada by Deloitte and top 50 "Best Workplaces in Canada" two years in a row. For his work building Borrowell, Andrew was named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019. Andrew holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MA in economics from the University of Edinburgh
Atul Varde is Chief Information and Payments Officer at Servus Credit Union, headquartered in Edmonton. Mr. Varde provides strategic technology management and payments business leadership to the organization and is responsible for ensuring that IT investments possess an appropriate risk-return profile while being aligned with the overall business growth and innovation strategy. Mr. Varde is also accountable for the Government Relations area at Servus.
Prior to his current position, Atul served in CIO roles at Vancity Credit Union in Vancouver and also Affinity Credit Union in Saskatoon. Earlier in his career, he founded and managed a successful IT company specializing in financial data processing, software development, and information systems consulting. In addition to financial services, his overall IT career has covered an eclectic mix of domains including nuclear engineering, post-secondary education, and healthcare.
Notable participatory innovation initiatives in Atul's career as CIO include the introduction of mobile Remote Deposit Capture technology to Canada, a ground-breaking joint project with Interac in the area of debit mobile payments using NFC/HCE technology on the Android platform, an industry-leading integration of digital signatures into the mortgage renewal process, and one of the earliest in-production implementations of electronic voting for Credit Union elections using blockchain technology.
Emma’s expertise in management consulting includes advising global organizations on digital business transformations and aligning value creation with effective risk management, governance and compliance practices.
Her experience on transformation projects includes ESG benchmarking and rating analytics, technology implementations, business process and risk reviews, data analytics and creation of data assets, data governance and security, international tax structuring and tax risk management and cyber risk mitigation strategies. She brings her experience to transforming Board mandates and processes to be strategic and forward looking, using data analytics and technology.
Emma has over 22 years of combined experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young with 18 of those years as a Partner and has worked with the largest North American and global Financial Institutions and Technology companies. She became a world leading expert in Transfer Pricing and has worked with senior management and Boards on transitioning transfer pricing from a compliance exercise to a strategic approach and managing the relationships with governments and regulators.
In her role as the Global Digital Tax Leader, Emma helped companies understand the business and financial impact of evolving global tax policies and how to establish the related governance and reporting. Emma worked with clients to communicate how they were “paying their fair share of tax” with their external stakeholders in their CSR reports. She pioneered innovative business solutions incorporating data analytics and artificial intelligence. Emma is an Independent Director on public and private boards.
With over 25 years of experience in digital strategy and transformation, Stéphane has made a name for himself as a key player in the evolution of Canada’s digital landscape.
Prior to working at National Bank of Canada, Stephane was active in the media industry where he led numerous digital transformation programs for the Sun Media Corporation, the National Film Board of Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Stephane holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Communications and Digital Media from the University of Quebec in Montréal (UQAM).
Senator Colin Deacon was appointed to represent Nova Scotia in the Senate of Canada in June 2018. A lifelong entrepreneur, he passionately believes that we must build a more inclusive economy if we want a more resilient economy. As a result, Senator Deacon believes that entrepreneurship is a tool to not
just enable economic empowerment in communities across our country, but to create positive social change. Recently, he is most focused on harnessing the digital economy, improving Canada’s public and private sector competitiveness, and incentivizing and empowering the private sector to aggressively
address climate change.
Atul Varde is Chief Information and Payments Officer at Servus Credit Union, headquartered in Edmonton. Mr. Varde provides strategic technology management and payments business leadership to the organization and is responsible for ensuring that IT investments possess an appropriate risk-return profile while being aligned with the overall business growth and innovation strategy. Mr. Varde is also accountable for the Government Relations area at Servus.
Prior to his current position, Atul served in CIO roles at Vancity Credit Union in Vancouver and also Affinity Credit Union in Saskatoon. Earlier in his career, he founded and managed a successful IT company specializing in financial data processing, software development, and information systems consulting. In addition to financial services, his overall IT career has covered an eclectic mix of domains including nuclear engineering, post-secondary education, and healthcare.
Notable participatory innovation initiatives in Atul's career as CIO include the introduction of mobile Remote Deposit Capture technology to Canada, a ground-breaking joint project with Interac in the area of debit mobile payments using NFC/HCE technology on the Android platform. The project was an industry-leading integration of digital signatures into the mortgage renewal process, and one of the earliest in-production implementations of electronic voting for Credit Union elections using blockchain technology.