Why a multidisciplinary Data & Trust Office is now critical to compete in an era of instant payments, consumer-driven banking, and AI-powered fraud defense.

As Canada advances real-time payments, open banking and AI-powered fraud defenses — confidence in how data is managed has become a strategic differentiator. Symcor’s Data & Trust practices enable its solutions to be delivered with the rigor, confidence and innovation that is expected by our customers and regulators alike.

Canada’s Modernization Moment

Canada is entering a defining phase in the modernization of its financial system.

Budget 2025 confirmed the launch of Real-Time Rail (RTR) for 2026 — a foundational layer for the next generation of payments, identity, and digital commerce. In parallel, consumer-driven banking is moving Canada toward open finance, enabling individuals and small businesses to securely share their financial data to access better tools, credit, and services.

At the same time, fraud risks are evolving across banking, payments, and insurance. The National Anti-Fraud Strategy and the creation of the Financial Crimes Agency of Canada signal a clear shift: security is now economic infrastructure.

Together, these forces are reshaping how trust must be built, maintained, and proven across the financial ecosystem.

The Emerging Trust & Data Landscape

Canada’s financial system is changing fast. New regulations, real time payments, open banking, and rising fraud threats are putting fresh pressure on how institutions handle data and how they earn trust. At the same time, Canadians are becoming more discerning about who they trust with their data.

• A 2024 survey shows that while nearly half of Canadians are open to authorizing their financial institution to share data with third parties to access better products, trust levels vary significantly across banks, fintechs, and non-financial platforms, with heightened skepticism toward large technology and social media companies.
  
  
• Other surveys from the financial sector echo this “trust gap”: many Canadians are willing to share data but want stronger assurances, including simple ways to revoke consent, real-time visibility into how their information is used, and confidence that privacy protections will keep pace with open banking.

To respond to these emerging changes in the data landscape — and to reflect shifting perspectives of Canadians that trust must be central to data enabled solutions — the Quebec government modernized its private-sector privacy legislation through Law 25. Implementation is now underway, including stringent privacy requirements and fines. Quebec has also begun regulating certain uses of AI, including automated decision-making requirements.

In the year ahead, the federal government will look to also modernize Canada’s privacy legislation (PIPEDA) with new exacting requirements, potential fines, and more targeted regulation over AI.

These dynamics are converging just as real-time payments, consumer-driven banking, and AI-powered fraud defenses become core to everyday financial experiences. Symcor’s Data & Trust practices help ensure that, even during periods of rapid change, our solutions continue to meet the expectations of customers — and of Canadians.

Why Data Governance is Now a Competitive Advantage

In this environment, an integrated control model that spans privacy, AI governance, data governance, data quality, records management and security is no longer optional — it is how organizations stay resilient under scrutiny, earn customer confidence, and safely capitalize on the new infrastructure being built for Canada’s digital economy.

Symcor’s Data & Trust Office was built with that mandate: to unlock the value of data — from open banking APIs to AI-driven fraud detection on real-time rails — while maintaining confidence with clients, regulators, and end customers. As Robin Sooklal, Vice President, Privacy & Data Governance at Symcor, puts it:

“Trust has always shaped how we operate and in a real time world, it matters more than ever. We embed it by aligning our data & trust practices with leading standards, meeting contractual and regulatory obligations, and staying ahead of what responsible data stewardship requires.”

At Symcor, this means helping Canada’s largest institutions innovate faster, supported by clear, transparent guardrails for how data is collected, used, and shared.

Real-world impact: When a consumer uses open banking APIs to share transaction data with a budgeting app, multiple systems exchange sensitive information in seconds. Behind that seamless experience sits a set of controls ensuring consent is verified, data is encrypted, access is logged, and privacy regulations are met — without slowing the user experience.

Seven Pillars for a Trust-First Data Strategy

Symcor’s Data & Trust Office brings seven disciplines together under one integrated strategy. Here’s what it really takes to govern data well in a real time ecosystem:

1.  Accountability & Stewardship
2.  Transparency & Explainability
3.  Privacy & Ethical Use
4.  Security & Protection
5.  Data Quality & Integrity; Fairness, Inclusiveness & Non-Discrimination
6.  Enablement & Responsible Innovation
7.  Minimization, Retention & Purpose Limitation

The goal is simple: ensure every data asset — whether powering fraud analytics, consumer-permissioned data access, or automation — is governed across its full lifecycle.

Rather than operating as isolated controls, these pillars function as a connected system. They define how data is catalogued, classified, accessed, and monitored — so product teams can move quickly while maintaining clear accountability, auditable decision-making, and alignment with evolving privacy and AI expectations. Robin sums up the intent behind this design:

“Together, these pillars establish robust governance to effectively manage all aspects of data entering or created within Symcor, ensuring the necessary controls are in place to uphold our commitments and meet regulatory requirements for data management.”

AI Governance for Real-Time, High-Stakes Decisions

As AI becomes embedded into payment flows, fraud models, and personalization engines, decisions are now being made in milliseconds with real financial consequences. This reality raises the bar.

Micro-scenario: When fraud models flag unusual activity in real time, the outcome hinges on split-second choices. The difference between stopping a bad payment and blocking a good customer often comes down to governed data inputs and clear decision controls.

“AI Governance is of critical importance as AI evolves and is steadily becoming a core feature within product offerings. At Symcor, our AI governance program looks to promote the principles of accountability, safety, fairness and equity, human oversight and monitoring, validity, robustness and transparency.”

— Robin Sooklal, Vice President, Privacy & Data Governance, Symcor

Operationalizing these principles reduces the risk of algorithmic bias, opaque decisioning, and unintended harms to consumers or institutions. It also gives stakeholders the confidence to scale AI across high-impact use cases — from authorized push payment fraud detection to secure open banking data exchanges.

Building Trust Infrastructure for RTR, Consumer-Driven Banking and Fraud Resilience

As conversations about economic and data sovereignty intensify, Canada’s financial sector faces a strategic choice: treat privacy and governance as a cost centre, or as national infrastructure that underpins digital competitiveness.

Organizations that choose the latter — embedding trust, transparency, and ethical AI into their operating model — will be better positioned to attract partners, customers, and regulators’ confidence.

Symcor’s Data & Trust Office reflects this long-term view. As Canada steps into a real time, open, AI driven future, institutions that embed trust into every data decision will be the ones that lead. Symcor is here to help build that future securely, collaboratively, and at scale.

How Symcor Powers Canada’s Trust Infrastructure

Symcor’s mission-critical platforms support Canada’s financial ecosystem across payments, fraud, and data exchange:

• COR.CONNECT — trusted, enterprise-grade connectivity for consumer-driven banking and open finance
• COR.IQ — consortium-driven fraud intelligence and real-time risk mitigation
• COR.CCX — secure, compliant customer communications across digital and physical channels
  
  “Symcor has long operated as a trusted intermediary for secure data exchanges and networked fraud solutions across the Canadian market. This experience, combined with the Data & Trust Office’s governance framework, positions Symcor to help clients accelerate initiatives such as open banking readiness and real-time fraud mitigation — while staying ahead of regulatory and consumer scrutiny.”
  
  — Robin Sooklal, Vice President, Privacy & Data Governance at Symcor

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