The Large Credit Union Coalition (LCUC) represents Canada’s largest credit unions with over 2.8 million members and $150 billion in assets, with credit unions in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and New Brunswick. The goal of the LCUC CIO group is to use their collective knowledge and national presence to provide technology leadership and innovation to enrich the financial lives of their members and strengthen the competitiveness of Canadian credit unions.
Based on timelines set out by the Canadian government, Canada is expected to have an Open Banking regime in place by the end of 2023. The Open Banking regime will allow Canadian consumers to securely share their banking data between accredited financial services providers, conditional on informed consumer consent. While optional for credit unions, the LCUC views participation in Open Banking as essential to maintaining competitive parity and enhancing member experiences.
In order to facilitate credit union participation in Open Banking, the LCUC CIO Group is seeking a partner(s) to provide an Open Banking Utility for credit unions. The Utility will include all the necessary functionality to participate in the forthcoming Canadian Open Banking regime. The use of a single national Open Banking Utility will benefit the system by:
Reducing the fragmentation of technology
Negotiating more favorable pricing for credit unions through combined bargaining efforts
Achieving economies of scale through aggregated transaction volume pricing
Strengthening member security and privacy through standardized, industry-leading practices
Streamlining implementations by integrating at the service provider level (when practical)
And more.
The national Open Banking Utility will allow credit unions to redirect their resources and efforts toward creating unique value propositions for their members through Open Banking. All credit unions will have access to the Open Banking Utility on the same terms as the LCUC credit unions.
To facilitate the selection of a preferred partner(s) to provide the Open Banking Utility, the LCUC CIO Group released an RFP to select vendors on December 9th 2022. Vendor responses to the RFP were due in early January, and the LCUC has created a shortlist of vendors based on those responses. Further evaluation, including technical demonstrations, is currently underway with the shortlist of vendors. Negotiations will start in February with the preferred partner(s) and the LCUC CIO Group will provide an update to the credit union system at that time.