GFT and Ozone API Partner to Guide Canadian Institutions Through Open Banking Transition

WHY THIS MATTERS: The global market for open banking is booming, yet its adoption in North America—particularly Canada—has been hampered by the crippling expense and technical demands of regulatory compliance. This new partnership cuts straight to the heart of the issue: providing a streamlined, end-to-end solution that de-risks the transformation journey. The move is highly significant because it eliminates the high entry barrier, allowing financial institutions to pivot their focus from merely meeting minimum regulatory standards to actively pursuing the strategic growth opportunities unlocked by open finance. By combining deep sector expertise with a world-leading open API platform, this collaboration accelerates the path to commercialization, giving banks the immediate capability to integrate embedded finance features and reimagine the customer experience, rather than stalling investment over resource scarcity.

The market size of open banking is projected to surpass $48 billion dollars in 2026, continuing double-digit annual growth. While much of this share has been dominated by banks in Europe and Latin America, GFT and Ozone API are now partnering to launch North American institutions into the open banking arena.

Due to Budget 2025’s acceleration of the Consumer Driven-Banking Act, the future of open banking in Canada is actively unfolding. However, even with governmental support and consumer demand, many banks are stalling their investments in the new technology. This is largely due to the fact that many institutions lack the specialist resources to handle the technical complexities of new regulatory compliance, heightened security requirements and customer data sharing consent – all whilst navigating the strategic growth opportunities of this new model. In fact, many of the banks around the world who have tried, have spent tens of millions of dollars to just meet regulatory minimums.

It’s against this backdrop that GFT is combining its over 35 years of financial expertise with Ozone API’s world leading open API platform, to eliminate implementation roadblocks so that banks can quickly become open banking compliant. Ozone API’s founding team created the first global open banking standard in the UK, and has continued this work in other countries, powering ecosystems for central banks globally. Now, GFT is partnering with the company to bring the platform to North American financial institutions as open finance initiatives become an increasing focus.

“Open banking offers significant potential for Canadian financial institutions, provided they have the right technology to manage and use the data it introduces,” said André Gagné, CEO Canada at GFT. “While Canada advances toward a standardized framework, institutions still face important steps on the path to full implementation. Tools like the Ozone API platform help bridge those gaps by simplifying integration, supporting compliance, and accelerating value generation. It provides a strong foundation for financial institutions as open banking gains momentum nationwide.”

Together, GFT and Ozone API will provide Canadian banks with an end to end solution that removes the complexities of delivering open APIs, from security to customer management, allowing them to streamline the introduction of open banking technology, and automatically commercialize while remaining compliant with shifting regulatory standards. With open APIs and embedded finance capabilities integrated into their existing infrastructure, banks will have the ability to build solutions that reimagine the customer experience, giving consumers more financial freedom and unlocking new revenue streams.

“Our goal from the start has been to help financial institutions to quickly and simply deliver open APIs that meet regulations, but also to go beyond compliance to unlock commercial value,” said Huw Davies, Co-Founder & CEO at Ozone API. “Open finance is picking up steam globally and is laying the foundations for banks to reimagine how they engage with customers and help them to get more from their finances. We are dedicated to bringing North American banks into this fold, accelerating their open banking journeys through our work with GFT.”

GFT has more than 9,000 banking experts across the 20 markets it operates in globally.

FF NEWS TAKE: This agreement is a critical inflection point for the Canadian market, effectively ‘productizing’ the solution to a costly, complex, and mandatory challenge. It moves the needle by providing a credible and accelerated off-ramp from legacy systems. The real test now lies in execution: we will be watching for which major Canadian bank is the first to publicly announce full platform deployment, demonstrating not just compliance, but the successful launch of genuinely innovative, customer-centric services built on the new foundation of open APIs