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I have very little faith in some random tech limited liability to be able to pay up if something bad happens. That’s not to say I’m super confident in the banks either, just that they have way more money, are pressed hard to do infosec and have government backing if and when shit hits the fan.
Agreed, peering behind the veil of any organization will probably result in a loss of confidence. And to be fair, I do have concerns about this ultimately being 100% private and secure, but I’m mindful that perfection shouldnt be the enemy of progress. I have confidence that there is a relatively safe way to implement this. We’re not the first in the world to do it, and thankfully we can look to other jurisdictions to see where the risks are.
Now that I think about it, I bet the big five have probably made sure the conditions are as onerous as possible in order to reduce any actual competition as much as possible. :D
They’ll undoubtedly speak with banks when the legislation passes and regulations are being drafted, and a part of me hopes that the big dinosaur institutions we have realize deep down that they need to enter the modern world.
Banks are competition in the sense that they have competing interests, but not in the sense that are offering a comparable product. If my bank was actually interested in building an app that would help me wrangle and take control of my spending habits, they would have already built it with a couple devs like all these other apps popping up.
The regulation is the IIROC Dealer Member Rule (DMR) 3200 A. 1.(b) (i) which prohibits IIROC registrants (brokerages) from allowing their clients to use their own automated order systems to generate orders. So just clarifying that its not illegal because it’s unsafe, just that they dont want us to give an app our credentials that does algorithmic trading on our behalf. Their reasons, i dont know.
I get that this doesnt matter for a lot of people, but i specifically chose my bank because it had close ties with Plaid (API aggregator) - the closest we currently have to open banking. To me, it just seems so fundamentally simple to be able to offer a way to export your own transaction information to whoever you agree to share it with. Boggles my mind that we dont have this already.
In Canada, the thing that makes people hesitate when giving financial data to an app is where liability sits when sharing your account details. Right now, because i’m sharing my credentials with Plaid some banks would refuse to reimburse you if you were subsequently hacked - regardless of the leak source. When open banking legislation comes into effect, this liability will be shifted to the data brokers (plaid), and potentially also the thrid party applications that do things with your financial data.
Many of us have indigenous ancestry but don’t identify as indigenous. It seems to me that the Indian Act made it black and white for a lot of people - you’re either Status Indian or not indigenous at all. This story is so damaging to people who might want to reconnect and learn about their ancestry. If I had a real choice to embrace indigenous culture as my own growing up, I would have in a heartbeat.
Companies capitalizing on convenience is not new. If you want to go to the ultimate end of the spectrum where you don’t need to give up any info to a third party, open source applications have you covered. Firefly iii, Actual Budget to name two with existing bank integrations.
It comes down to your personal risk tolerance and appetite. If you have no tolerance, don’t take the risk and stick with your convictions instead of grumbling that you had to give your bank statements to download a scammy Tetris app.