The CIO Strategy Council has announced the publication of a new National Standard of Canada that will focus on consumer directed finance, an official blogpost states. Dubbed CAN/CIOSC 110-1: 2022, the standard specifies minimum requirements for planning, designing, developing, implementing, maintaining, and improving the customer experience surrounding access to customer banking, transaction, and other financial data from bank and non-bank financial institutions.

The Standard can be applied by financial product- and service-related organisations. Any organisation, regardless of its type or size, or the financial products and/or services it provides can use it, including third-party providers that design products or services to facilitate access to customer banking, transaction, and other financial data from bank and non-bank financial institutions. According to a Financial Services Regulatory Lawyer at BLG, who serves as Advisor to the Board of Open Finance Network Canada (OFNC – formerly OBIC), ‘this document is the result of careful collaboration among experts in the banking and financial sector in Canada and abroad, in order to pen standards that, if duly followed, protect Canadians who use financial services products, without stifling innovation in the market.

Until a formal legal and regulatory framework is in place for Open Banking/Finance in Canada, I hope this can be of help for businesses looking to maintain best practices for consumer-directed finance, and for informing the public about what they might expect from their financial services providers. ’ According to the Senior Director of Standards at CIO Strategy Council, the Council published a ‘core strategic standard for Canada’. For its publication, the standard required key stakeholders to sit together at one table, including banks, both large and small, credit unions, fintechs, policymakers, global experts, and consumers.

The Council’s representative declared that the standard aims to distil all of these perspectives into a simple, proven set of guidelines that if applied will reportedly help Canadian organisations enter the Open Banking arena strictly focused on the needs of customers. The standard is publicly available on the CIO Strategy Council website. More about the CIO Strategy Council According to the press release, the CIO Strategy Council is Canada’s national forum that seeks to bring together the country’s forward-thinking chief information officers and executive technology leaders to collectively mobilise on common digital priorities.

Spanning across major sectors of the Canadian economy – public, private, and not for profit – the Council leverages the collective expertise and action of Canada’s CIOs to transform Canada into a digital-first nation. The CIO Strategy Council is accredited by the Standards Council of Canada and develops standards that support the data-driven economy. In the freshly released Open Banking Report 2022, Canada’s Open Banking lead Abraham Tachjian shared his views about the future of the initiative in the country.

To find out more about this, we encourage you to download the report. .