• STACK launched in July 2018 with the goal of disrupting Canadian banking and giving consumers more control. The company offers fee-free services and unique rewards to members. In November 2018, the company introduced Canada's first vertical credit card.
• Infiniti Research published a whitepaper on trends in the Canadian financial services industry that can be accessed for free by providing contact information.
• According to Infiniti, three major trends in the financial industry are open banking, conversational engagement, and cloud technology.

Open Banking

• The federal government of Canada announced that it would be exploring the merits of open banking. Open banking is when consumers can authorize private banking institutions to make their data available to third parties. It is expected that open banking will be coming to Canada and will impact consumers.
• A late 2018 survey of 1,000 Canadians found that only 15% of respondents expected their bank to offer open banking, and only 11% would use their bank more if they did offer the service.
•  60% of financial services providers in Canada have implemented open banking into their strategic plans.

Conversational Engagement

• Financial institutions need to fully adopt conversational AI to meet consumers desire to have information immediately available. An example is Manulife Bank launching their All-In Banking Package which is powered by Kasisto's KAI technology.
•  Five current chatbots for the financial industry are Kasisto AI, Personetics Assist, Finn AI, Clinc, and Trim.

Cloud Technology

• Adoption of cloud technology in banking is becoming mainstream in Canada.