Finance Committee on Feb. 12th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

In the second hour. Okay.

We're going with Mr. McLean for five minutes, then.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to direct my questions to Ms. Vega and Ms. Oliver.

First of all, open banking has been far delayed in Canada for a long time. I remember working on it in 2017 and 2018, and somehow it's been stalled ever since then. That is not a good thing.

Ms. Oliver, do you know why it has stalled as long as it has in Canada?

[Jessica Oliver]

I think in terms of support, there's only been growing support over the last number of years—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I apologize for interrupting, but I'm not asking about support. I'm asking what took the government so long, between 2016 and 2018, to get to any kind of open banking framework when every other country in the world was moving much more quickly.

[Jessica Oliver]

I couldn't say.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you.

Australia has had real-time rail since open banking was introduced over eight years ago. Do you think real-time rail will be relevant once crypto trading, Bitcoin and stablecoin issuance replace it? Is it going to be more expensive than the alternative at some point?

[Jessica Oliver]

We absolutely see the RTR as critical and complementary to other innovations. Stablecoins, we think, are also very important, but digital assets are in their infancy.

Every other G7 country has a real-time rail. All of those countries had the government leading that and mandating participation to ensure that consumers would benefit and that competition would increase. We absolutely see a role for the RTR in Canada to do the same.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

What are the costs of a real-time rail versus a stablecoin transaction?

[Jessica Oliver]

I'm not sure. I know the vast majority, well over 95%, of stablecoin transactions are in USD.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Okay, but we're talking here about legislation that's going to be set up in Canada.

That leads to my next question on the importance of having this infrastructure in Canada so that we abide by Canadian law. Do you think that's adequately laid out in the government's framework here about how they're going to establish a crypto stablecoin regime in Canada?

[Jessica Oliver]

I think the step to assert jurisdiction over stablecoins as a payment instrument is certainly in line with how our consumers use it. If you were to look at Bitcoin, which we offer our clients and is regulated as a security, in a given month, 10% of the total volume that we hold.... Let's just say that if you had $1 million in Bitcoin, $100,000 would transact in a given month. USDC is the most common stablecoin transacted on our platform and it moves on and off at 250%. We see that it is being used to settle transactions, not to buy and hold.

We are supportive of federal jurisdiction over stablecoins, and we hope that provinces—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you.

If I could move on here, just quickly, please, the last question for you is the one about the Bank of Canada as the regulator here. Do you see a problem if there are other issuers of stablecoins, if the Bank of Canada, which is also a potential issuer of a stablecoin here, is the regulator of those entities?

[Jessica Oliver]

We are comfortable with the Bank of Canada as a regulator of payments.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Do you think there's an issue with privacy if the Bank of Canada, the Government of Canada, is the regulator of the stablecoins? I'm thinking about issues like we had in Canada when the government froze bank accounts. The Bank of Canada being able to freeze stablecoin issuances is a gross overstep, as the Federal Court has said. Do you think this leads to that risk?

[Jessica Oliver]

No. I don't see a correlation.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Okay.

I'll go to Ms. Vega now for a quick follow-up question.

The issue with this act is that there is no interest payable on the stablecoins and yet most of your issuers give bonuses and interest in order to move over. Do you see this being a problem in terms of getting a stablecoin established with your members?

[Adriana Vega]

I think the devil is in the details. Even in the U.S., in the GENIUS Act, just because of the way it was drafted, they also prohibit yield payments. I think it's still early days.

What matters to our members, as you rightly mention, is that if you're a wallet, if you're providing the service, the competitive advantage or disadvantage that a yield or a rewards scheme, if you like, will allow is what's going to determine whether or not we remain competitive as a country in the stablecoin framework. I think a lot of the details are still left to be seen in the regulation, but in the conversations I've had with the folks at the Department of Finance, it is well understood in terms of the dynamic and the sort of impact this could have on competition—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Ms. Vega. We're going to have to end this round there.

Thank you, Mr. McLean.

We will continue now with Mr. Sawatzky for five minutes.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for coming today.

Ms. Vega, I wonder if I could start with a general question.

Could you summarize what from budget 2025 you think will be most beneficial for Canadians?

[Adriana Vega]

Quite frankly, I think the big picture, this spirit of competition in some of these reforms for the financial sector, is something that I mentioned in my remarks as long overdue. It's something where you can see the impact across the economy more broadly from a consumer perspective, but also from a small business perspective.

On open banking, I think everybody in this room and some of the members themselves have already mentioned it. A lot of us have been waiting for this for a long time. I think that it's really time to move to implementation, execution and making sure that it works in the way that it's meant to work in that pro-competition spirit. Once we have that, you will see impacts in the reduction of friction in financial transactions. You will see an impact in participants having to show up and offer better offerings, and different participants being able to offer more beneficial loans and services to their consumers.

I would say specifically that I would point to small businesses, because right now, transacting as a small business is very complicated. I am convinced personally that it prevents small businesses from entering global trade. As you know, if you're a small business and you're facing a payment that's going to be delayed for several weeks, you think twice before you even enter those transactions. I think that both open banking and the stablecoin act, from our perspective, are the ones that are going to be most impactful.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you very much.

I guess you would say that this budget is on the right track. Is that correct?

[Adriana Vega]

Certainly, and I would encourage the members to approve it.

From our perspective, it's a robust package of reforms for the financial sector. If there are any gaps to be addressed, we are very committed to working with the government on regulatory development. I'm happy to talk more about that.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you very much. That's wonderful to hear. I certainly hope it passes soon as well.

Going over to you, Ms. Oliver, in Wealthsimple's pre-budget consultations, there was a note that:

...exit fees have risen from $0 to $75 in the early 2010s to near-ubiquitous $150 per account in 2025—costing Canadians hundreds of millions of dollars annually and borne disproportionately by Gen Z and millennials.

I was wondering if you could speak broadly on the exit fees.

[Jessica Oliver]

Yes. The disproportionate impact on young people I think is very important. We talk a lot about reductions in trust and confidence in government and in large institutions. I think it's important to think about what contributes to that. If you have $5,000 in a first-time home savings account and you are moving, you're getting married or for whatever reason you've decided that you would like to move that account, when you are being levied a $150 fee on a $5,000 balance, that feels defeating. It feels like large institutions are able to take advantage of you and get you coming and going with impunity.

They feel that way because that is what they are living. That is what they are experiencing. The people who are able to have these fees reversed or reimbursed are wealthy clients.

For the vast majority, we try to reimburse. We used to reimburse fees that other institutions charged. We do not charge exit fees. We used to reimburse fees for clients with accounts above $5,000. It was not sustainable. We increased it to $15,000. It was not sustainable. We increased it to $25,000, but we made it automatic instead of having people have to request it.

We realized that only 35% of clients who were eligible for reimbursement were asking. We looked into who had not been asking or the reverse. The wealthier you were and the older you were, the more likely you were to ask for the reimbursement you were entitled to. Don't forget that half the clients transferring to Wealthsimple were not above the $25,000 threshold. According to CRA, the average TFSA does not reach $25,000 until the age of 50, which means that the average client under 50 moving a TFSA is not eligible for reimbursement. Even if they are, they are unlikely to know to ask.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you.

Especially at a time when a lot of young people are having issues with affordability, I think there would be some welcome change there.

Wealthsimple's pre-budget consultation also called for completing consumer-driven banking—