Canada Unveils Major Open Banking Reforms in Budget 2025
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Canada has announced new commitments to advance open banking as part of its 2025 national budget. The country has been slower than places like the UK and Australia in creating a full legal and operational framework for open banking, which in Canada is often referred to as consumer-directed or consumer-driven banking.
The 2025 Budget, released on 4 November, confirms that the government will introduce legislation to finalize the Consumer-Driven Banking Act. It also plans to add a data-mobility right to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to support data sharing across the broader economy.
A major change is the decision to assign oversight of the Consumer-Driven Banking Act to the Bank of Canada. This marks a shift from earlier plans to expand the mandate of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. The Bank of Canada will retain up to 19.3 million Canadian dollars from its remittances to fund implementation over two years. Meanwhile, the previously allocated 36.9 million Canadian dollars earmarked for the FCAC will no longer be used.
Open banking is promoted globally as a way to increase innovation and competition in financial services. It enables consumers to share their banking data with third-party providers through open APIs.
In the broader context of financial innovation, the 493-page budget document highlights progress on Canada’s Real-Time-Rail payments system, which will allow real-time, data-rich payments nationwide. The government plans to provide 25.7 million Canadian dollars over five years, plus 5 million annually, to the national intelligence and police agencies to ensure security within the Consumer-Driven Banking framework.
The government will also push forward with the next phase of consumer-driven banking, including legislating “write access” — the ability to perform actions like switching accounts or making payments — by mid-2027, once the Real-Time-Rail system is widely operational. The Budget confirms support for launching Real-Time-Rail in 2026.
The document highlights that open banking is expected to especially benefit lower-income households by offering lower-cost financial products, clearer choices, and tools to manage debt.
Canada has been working toward open banking for several years. An advisory committee report released in 2021 recommended launching the system by January 2023, a target that has since passed. The new commitments signal renewed momentum under the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney.
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