After ten years of challenger banks and consumer apps, the next wave of innovation is happening deeper in the stack, in areas like compliance, infrastructure, automation and the financial plumbing that most users never see. These businesses don’t want to take the place of banks. They want the system to work better.
Startups show that change. Some people are making tools for finance teams that are under pressure to do more with less. Some people are thinking about how money moves across borders, how to handle risk or how to organise their own finances. All of them are early-stage, privately held companies that work in areas where small product wins can have a big effect.
Is Fintech In Demand In Canada?
The fintech sector has an interesting chance in Canada. Canadian customers trust the big banks a lot, unlike in some other parts of the world. They have been around for decades. Fintechs are looking into the chance to work with these companies (to get access to their established customer relationships) while also competing with them, since they understand how this works.
What Are The Challenges Of The Fintech Market In Canada?
First of all, fintech companies have to deal with the fact that bigger banks and other financial institutions have a slower sales cycle. Because of this, tech companies have to start out with a much stronger position than companies in other industries when selling to these markets. Bigger projects need more developers, which means a bigger investment. But banks and other financial institutions have the tools and the desire to make these projects work. Once they team up with a fintech company, the relationship tends to be strong and last for a long time.
By making connections early on and talking to potential partners and investors about the future, entrepreneurs can better position themselves with these people even before they have a finished product. This way, potential investors can be brought on as advisors to help shape the technology into something they will want to buy.
More from Startups
Top 10 Fintech Startups In Canada
Canada has many notable fintech companies. Below are 10 Canadian fintech startups to watch in 2026.
Chimoney
Chimoney started out focusing on cross-border payments, but in late 2025 it changed its focus to the AI agent economy. Now it offers licensed wallets, W3C digital identity and policy controls for both autonomous agents and users. Chimoney is one of Canada’s most innovative fintechs to watch in 2026. It is located at the crossroads of payments, identity and AI.
Finofo
Finofo is an accounts payable automation platform that is native to AI and is based on documents instead of ERP dependencies. The platform takes in and understands invoices, purchase orders, receipts, packing slips and other supporting documents as soon as they arrive. It then automatically sorts, matches, routes approvals, posts to accounting systems and pays vendors.
Finofo’s document-first, AI-driven approach makes it a competitor to older AP systems as mid-market finance teams face more pressure to grow with fewer people.
FriedmannAI
FriedmannAI is a financial planning platform based in Toronto that is made for advisors who work in regulated environments. The platform helps financial and insurance advisors model, visualise and explain complicated decisions about retirement, insurance, taxes, businesses,
The company builds compliance features like audit trails and structured reasoning directly into its workflows. The company is positioning itself as an AI-first planning platform for advisors heading into 2026 as regulatory scrutiny and client expectations rise.
Karla
Karla is making a self-driving, privacy-first money co-pilot for busy people who want to feel financially secure in less than two minutes a day. In less than a year, it has grown to over 10,000 users who can manage their spending, saving, investing and credit without having to micromanage.
As financial worry continues to hurt Canadians’ health, Karla sends users a real-time financial digest to their phones. This makes it like having a personal CFO in your pocket and helps ease financial stress as the need for reliable advice grows.
Opal
Opal in Vancouver makes modern corporate cards and tools for managing spending that are made for companies that are growing quickly. The platform lets finance teams see spending in real time, set up automated controls and make reporting easier. It has become popular with startups and scaleups looking for alternatives to old expense tools.
Propra
Propra is an AI-based property management platform that uses accounting as its main record system. It focuses on trust accounting, reconciliations and financial reporting for operators who manage real estate rental and/or condo portfolios, as well as operational tools. In 2025, Propra made its place as a fintech company clearer by focusing on financial automation instead of traditional proptech features.
Purelend
Purelend is changing the way brokers and lenders do business with mortgages. The platform takes care of everything from organising documents to checking income, which used to take hours or even days of manual work. Purelend is a fintech company to watch in 2026 because its AI-driven efficiency helps the mortgage industry modernise old workflows and speed up funding.
SimpleHedge
SimpleHedge is making software that will help small and medium-sized businesses manage their financial risks more easily. The platform makes it easier to use hedging strategies for interest rates, foreign exchange and market volatility – things that used to be only available to big companies.
Because global markets are still very volatile, the need for risk management tools that are easy to use and practical could grow. This makes SimpleHedge a fintech company to keep an eye on in 2026.
Trusty
Trusty was started in 2023. The company helps people organise, store and safely share important personal information, assets and end-of-life wishes. Trusty uses modern fintech design to improve a fragmented and often ignored process that goes along with traditional estate planning. As digital assets become more common and wealth transfers between generations speed up, Trusty meets a growing need among consumers as we head into 2026.
Tuhk
Tuhk (pronounced “tuck”) is working on a collaborative payments platform that will let merchants, banks and service providers share data safely and in real time to fight fraud around the world. As it gets ready to launch in the UK, US and Canada, Tuhk’s distributed intelligence network wants to cut down on fraud losses, speed up transaction approvals and make it easier to settle disputes.
