Canada

For every thousand members, Canadian credit unions employ four to five staff. UK credit unions manage with roughly one, underscoring the importance of credit union automation. That’s a striking gap. And in conversations with Canadian credit union leaders, we keep hearing the same frustrations behind it: loan decisions taking days or weeks. Business loans taking…

Canadian credit unions have long championed the small business community, through business chequing accounts, working-capital facilities, and startup lending. Yet when it comes to lending, many SMEs remain underserved, not because credit unions lack appetite, but because traditional underwriting makes small business loans expensive to assess and slow to deliver. As Canada moves toward Consumer-Driven…

As Canadian credit unions prepare for Consumer-Driven Open Banking in 2026, there’s a critical opportunity being missed: Open Data for credit assessment. While most discussions focus on account portability and switching, Canadian credit unions could leverage a much broader Open Data ecosystem for lending decisions, as UK credit unions have done since 2018. In this…

Canada is moving from discussion to delivery. In Budget 2025, the federal government confirmed legislation to complete Consumer-Driven Banking (CDB) – often called Open Banking – signalling the start of an Open Data era for financial services. For credit unions, that means member-permissioned data becomes a standard input to faster, fairer lending. With rollout expected…

Canada’s Consumer-Driven Banking Framework launches in 2026, offering credit unions an opportunity to revolutionise lending through open data. Consumer-Driven Banking gives members control over their financial data, enabling credit unions to make fairer, faster lending decisions. Canadian credit union members face longer approval times than major bank customers. Higher decline rates for younger borrowers and…