FAIR Canada recently submitted comments on Canada’s proposed consumer-driven banking framework. We support efforts to give Canadians greater control over their financial data and to replace risky practices such as screen scraping with safer, more secure data-sharing.
At the same time, the framework must be designed through the eyes of consumers. Federal and provincial regulators should work together so Canadians have a consistent and seamless experience, regardless of which regulator oversees a particular financial product or service. Complaint-handling processes must also be coordinated so consumers are not left to navigate gaps, overlaps, or uncertainty when something goes wrong. The success of consumer-driven banking should be measured not only by the innovation it enables, but by whether it produces safer, more transparent, and more useful financial services for consumers.