Invisible banking, on a stage in Toronto

Scott Elliot joined the embedded finance panel at the Canada FinTech Symposium in Toronto.

On stage with him: Surinderjit Kaur Bhatti of Fathom4sight, Charles Fisher of KOHO, Azim Lila and Rohitash Hurla.

The panel covered four things:

• Where bank and fintech partnerships in Canada actually stand
• The future of embedded finance and invisible banking
• What AI agents are starting to do inside financial services
• What all of it opens up, and costs, for financial institutions

The part we care most about

Invisible banking is a good phrase because it describes the finished product rather than the plumbing. If the customer notices the financial infrastructure, someone has done a bad job.

That is the standard we hold ourselves to. A business on a platform we power sees an offer in a tool they already had open, takes it, and gets on with their day. They do not learn our name, they do not fill out a separate application, and they do not go anywhere else. The platform keeps the brand and the relationship, and everything under it is ours to run.

The harder version of the question, and the one the panel kept circling, is who carries what. Invisible is easy to say and expensive to deliver, because someone still has to underwrite, fund, service and stay compliant. Our answer is that it should not be the platform.

Thanks to the organisers and to the rest of the panel. Good room, better questions.