How Canada's Digital Banks Are Shaping Financial Services through Prepaid

Canada’s neobanks are no longer a sideshow. They are setting the standard for how money moves, with sleek apps, rapid product launches, and prepaid at their core.

At the CPPO’s 10th annual Symposium, the neobank evolution session explored what that means in practice: how Canadians are using these platforms day to day, and what new use cases are emerging as new rules, rails, and expectations take shape. 

Here’s who provided insights on the panel: 

• Moderator: Balinder Ahluwalia, SVP Market Development and Group Head, Mastercard 

• Speakers:  

  • Adriana Iglesias Romero, Director, Payments Compliance and Operations, Wealthsimple 

  • Daljit Singh, Head - B2B Payments & Partnerships, EQ Bank 

  • Ryan Tevel, VP of Partnerships and Business Development, Koho 

  • Raveen Sangha, VP Strategic Partnership & Client Success, Peoples Group 

A market built on multi-banking 

Moderator Balinder Ahluwalia, SVP Market Development and Group Head at Mastercard, opened by refencing what CPPO’s new research shows about multi-banked behavior: 47% of Canadians now use online or challenger banks, and 41% have relationships with both traditional and digital providers. Canadians are no longer choosing one institution to do everything. They are building portfolios of relationships across saving, spending, investing, and credit. 

Everyday banking for people priced out of traditional models 

Ryan Tevel, VP of Partnerships and Business Development at KOHO, brought the conversation back to a basic problem in retail banking: the customers with the least money often pay the most in fees. He described a system where lower-balance consumers are more likely to be charged monthly fees, while more affluent customers often avoid them entirely. 

That reality shaped one of the clearest use cases discussed in the session. Digital-first banking tools can serve as a lower-cost entry point for customers who need help managing spending, building credit, and understanding their financial position in real time. Tevel pointed to three core needs behind that model: reducing fee pressure, helping customers build or establish a credit history, and giving them practical financial education through budgets, insights, and coaching. 

This matters because the value proposition goes beyond just a better-looking app. It is a daily banking experience designed for people who have historically been underserved by traditional models. 

Turning investing platforms into daily money hubs 

Adriana Iglesias Romero, Director of Payments Compliance and Operations at Wealthsimple, offered a different path into the neobank model. The starting point was investing. The initial goal was to make wealth-building more accessible by lowering minimum balances and fees. 

From there, the model expanded. By adding crypto and then spending capabilities, the platform moved closer to a unified environment where customers can invest, save, and transact from the same place. The use case here is straightforward: instead of treating wealth-building and everyday banking as separate experiences, digital challengers are collapsing them into a single financial relationship. 

That approach reflects a broader shift in customer expectations. People increasingly want one interface that helps them manage long-term goals and everyday cash flow without jumping across disconnected products. 

Removing friction from account opening and money movement 

Daljit Singh, Head of B2B Payments and Partnerships at EQ Bank, focused on the frictions many customers still encounter in legacy banking environments. He described experiences that will sound familiar to many consumers: long waits to open an account, limited access based on thin or non-existent credit files, and fees charged simply for holding deposits. 

Against that backdrop, Singh emphasized a different use case for digital challengers: making account opening and money movement feel immediate and low-friction. Faster onboarding, high-interest savings, easier transfers, and card products built to reduce foreign exchange pain all speak to the same shift. In a market where customers maintain multiple banking relationships, the institution that makes it easiest to move, access, and use money has a real advantage. 

Prepaid as infrastructure, not a niche product 

Raveen Sangha, VP Strategic Partnership and Client Success at Peoples Group, pushed the conversation beyond front-end banking experiences and into the rails that make them work. Her focus was prepaid, not as a niche or second-tier product, but as infrastructure supporting a growing range of real-world use cases. 

Those use cases are practical and immediate. Sangha pointed to early wage access, government payouts, and digital disbursements as examples of where prepaid programs are delivering faster, more flexible access to funds. For end users, these services may not even register as “prepaid.” What they notice is that money arrives faster, access feels simpler, and the experience is easier to navigate. 

That is an important distinction. As prepaid becomes more embedded in wage access, disbursements, and other payment flows, it starts to disappear into the experience itself. Sangha also made the broader ecosystem point: for Canada to keep advancing, the market needs many more fintechs enabled and operationalized, with more options, more accessibility, and more affordability for both businesses and consumers. 

AI as operational discipline 

The session’s discussion of AI was notably measured. Rather than treating AI or big data as solutions on their own, the speakers emphasized the importance of starting with clear hypotheses and well-defined problems. The underlying message was simple: better models do not matter much if they are aimed at the wrong task. 

In banking and payments, that makes AI most useful in practical domains such as onboarding, fraud, servicing, and decisioning. The panelists noted that AI will not instantly reinvent banking, but it can steadily improve how financial institutions understand customers, manage risk, and deliver better experiences over time. 

That framing fits the rest of the session. The strongest ideas extended beyond dramatic disruption for its own sake. The group pointed toward points about reducing friction, widening access, and applying the right tools to concrete problems customers actually face. 

What the ‘neo normal’ looks like 

Taken together, the session pointed to a clearer definition of Canada’s “neo normal.” It looks like multi-banking. It looks like everyday accounts that help users build credit and avoid fees. It looks like investing and spending converging in one interface. It looks like prepaid powering wage access, payouts, and disbursements behind the scenes.

That is why Canada’s neobanks are setting the pace. Not because they are new, but because they are increasingly built around specific, high-value use cases that reflect how people actually want to manage money today.