NCFA Fintech Confidential October 2021 (Issue 4)

Canadian landscape - Challenger Bank for
Kids/Teens. Treasure, Walo and Wingocard
are some of the players in this space. RBC
Ventures has also launched a kid banking
app called Mydoh. These solutions not only
enable parents to digitally give money to
their children, they also help them to track
children’s spending, set tasks that need to be
completed for earning allowance, and help
kids learn about savings. While most of these
apps are meant for kids and teens for earning
allowance from their parents, we have seen
a new player, SideKick, which is meant for
international students in Canada. SideKick
helps international students to receive money
from their family in different currencies and
enables spending in Canada through a
prepaid card.
Challenger Banks are enabling innovation
in the rewards and PFM space
Challengers are innovating the rewards
space which is no longer limited to the
traditional loyalty programs. The new players
are offering a range of reward options from
cashbacks that are immediately accessible
for spending to personalized discounts at a
curated list of
retailers. Mogo has given the rewards a
completely different twist by offering a
cashback in bitcoins. For every purchase
through a Mogo account, you earn 1-2%
bitcoin cashback which is accessible through
Mogo’s bitcoin account (Mogo also has a
bitcoin investing product). STACK has created
a community called World Stream where
STACK users can share their purchases and
STACKHacks to earn best rewards and save
money. PC Financial, on the other hand, is
staying strong on its loyalty program game
through its PC Optimum points program. The
program has more than 18 million members
and is in fact the layer behind most of the
Loblaw offerings - PC Money, Credit Cards,
PC Health and beyond.
solutions. These use-cases will further grow
with the advent of Open Banking in Canada
as users would then be able to link all their
accounts to a single app and get a full view
of their financial standing which will enable
informed financial decisions.
Prepaid is enabling non-banks to enter
challenger banking space
Non-banks are entering the financial space
through the launch of ‘bank like’ solutions
which are mainly enabled by a prepaid card.
The categories of these non-bank players
launching challenger banking solutions
for their customers range from tech giants
to e-commerce players to major retailers.
Prepaid enables these players to quickly
enter the financial industry and start capturing
the banking relationship of their customers
with minimal regulatory requirements and
skipping the need for getting a bank license.
The non-bank players are thus able to not
just offer an end-to-end experience to their
customers but also capture their spending
data which helps them to learn more about
the consumer and further innovate to offer
predictive services.
FGS tracks FinTechs players operating in
Canada and as per our data, there are 40
challenger banks in Canada as of August
2021 and the number is constantly growing.
If you are interested in more Canadian
FinTech trends and insights, reach out to us
at sbritton@fintechgrowthsyndicate.com and
sbhatti@fintechgrowthsyndicate.com.
Surinderjit Kaur Bhatti
Co-CEO
FGS
FEATURED
Additionally, challenger banks are enabling
Canadians to better manage their finances
by offering tools like automated savings,
spending limits, sub-accounts for saving
goals, transaction round-up savings and
spending insights. Some of the players also
offer credit score monitoring and building
About:
Surinderjit is a FinTech expert with experience ranging from the
venture capital world to leading an innovation lab of a financial
institution to innovation consulting. At present, she is a leader
at FinTech Growth Syndicate and helping Canadian Financial
Institutions build their FinTech strategies through market
intelligence services.
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