Population
40M
Online population
38M
Currency
CAD
Population - 40M
At the start of 2025, 82,1% of Canada’s population lived in urban centres, while 17,9% lived in rural areas.
Internet penetration - 95,2%
There were 38 millions internet users in Canada at the start of 2025.
For the third year in a row, the largest number of fintech investments was in the cryptoasset and blockchain vertical (34 deals in total). Fintechs in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) also drew investors with 19 deals, followed by the payments space, which garnered 14 investments.
Canada has lagged the UK and EU in open banking, but the federal government is finally implementing a system to enable secure data sharing between banks and fintechs. This will unlock competition, innovation, and consumer control over financial data.
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The rollout has been repeatedly delayed, moving from an initial target of early 2023 to now 2026 at the earliest, as the government works through legislative and accreditation complexities. These setbacks come amid mounting frustration from fintech leaders who warn that the absence of standardized APIs leaves them relying on insecure and unreliable screen-scraping, slowing innovation and limiting service offerings like credit-building tools. For consumers and SMEs, this means fewer seamless connections between accounts, limited choice in financial services, and continued dependency on traditional banks for data management.
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Canada’s legacy payment rails are being replaced with instant, 24/7 settlement infrastructure, similar to the UK’s Faster Payments or Singapore’s PayNow. RTR is expected to catalyze embedded finance and B2B innovation. In April 2025, the built of the new payment infrastructure was 60% complete.
According to KPMG, 82% of Canadian fintechs are deploying AI/ML for fraud detection, risk analytics, and personalization, putting Canada ahead of the global average. RegTech tools are also surging, as firms automate compliance with AML, ESG, and privacy rules (like Bill C‑27).
With the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA) in force, payment service providers (e.g., PayPal, Square) must register with the Bank of Canada. Regulatory sandboxes and tax incentives encourage innovation, while new rules (like the Digital Services Tax) ensure fair competition.