Canada’s #1 Fintech Conference.

2026 Canadian Finance Summit

Name: 2026 Canadian Finance Summit
Start: 2026-05-28T08:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-05-28T18:00:00+00:00

May 28th, 2026 | The Quay, Toronto, Ontario

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About This Event

The 2026 Canadian Finance Summit is Canada’s largest and most significant financial services conference, serving as the country’s premier FinTech event. Hosted by Finance Events, this annual gathering focuses on the Canadian financial services ecosystem, including payments, lending, capital markets, and banking. The event targets C-Suite and senior executives driving financial strategy. Attendees include leaders from major Canadian banks, credit unions, FinTech/InsurTech firms, and capital markets. It is the essential forum for over 800 professionals seeking to forge partnerships and gain competitive intelligence in Canadian finance. See last year’s sold out event.

The event is divided into three sections: networking, main stage and innovation stage.

Canadian Finance Summit is partnered with Toronto Tech Week. TTW is a citywide celebration of the people building what’s next. From May 25–29, 2026, founders, investors, and builders come together for hundreds of community-led events across Toronto, connecting tens of thousands of people around Canadian tech.

Past Speakers

Scott Wood CEO

Stephen Smith Chairperson

Amit Sadhu SVP Risk

Gayle Ramsay SVP Data & Analytics

Daniel Eberhard CEO

Chadwick Westlake CEO

Patrick Ens CEO

Dan Park CEO

Michael Garrity Chairperson

Michael McGhee SVP & Head, TD Auto Finance

Jason Mullins Former CEO

John Kontos SVP & Head Auto Finance

Summit Agenda

8:00am - 6:00 pm

8:00 - 8:50

Registration and Breakfast

Networking begins. Download the Finance Events Mobile App to setup meetings in the Networking Hall throughout the day. Numbers in the app correspond with numbers on the tables.

9:00 - 9:30 Main Stage Wealth

Canada’s Next Decade of Investing

Rewiring Canadian Finance: Canada’s investing landscape is being reshaped by higher-for-longer rates, new product wrappers, and AI-driven personalization. In this fireside, Som Seif will share what innovations actually matter (vs. hype), how Canadian portfolios evolve over the next decade, and the tradeoffs between broader access, transparency, and risk.

Som Seif
Founder & CEO

Purpose Unlimited
Keynote

9:30 - 10:00 Main Stage Lending

Going Beyond the Score

Rewriting the Rules of Credit: The traditional bureau score was built for a thinner-data economy. Today’s lenders deploy cash-flow analytics, alternative data, AI-assisted underwriting, and consortium intelligence. Speed has increased. So have losses in unexpected tiers. This panel examines how to expand access without underwriting illusion and how collections and recoveries are evolving in parallel.

Kevin Chan
CPO

TransUnion
Moderator
Colin Smith
VP, Risk & Decision Science

Wealthsimple
Speaker
Ardalan Shojaei
Chief Credit & Risk Officer

Fig
Speaker
Becca Mintz
Managing Vice President

Capital One
Speaker

9:30 - 10:00 Second Stage Compliance

Trust, Verified

The Infrastructure of Prevention: Fraud is shifting from brute force to persuasion—social engineering, account takeovers, and synthetic IDs across banking, lending, and wealth. This session explores the modern prevention stack—ID verification, device and behavioural signals, and KYC/AML—designed to stop bad actors without adding friction that breaks approvals or the customer experience.

John Crum
VP Risk Management

Fairstone
Speaker
Jose Israel Castro
Senior Manager

Facephi
Speaker

10:00 - 10:30

Morning Break

10:00 - 10:30 Second Stage Fraud

The Rise of Agentic Fraud Ops

Fighting Fraud at Machine Speed: Attackers can now probe systems and adapt in real time, while most defenses still move on human timelines. This session explores “agentic fraud ops”— using AI agents to investigate alerts, connect signals, surface emerging patterns, and help teams update defenses faster—with practical examples and a framework for where agents fit in modern fraud operations.

Soups Ranjan
CEO

Sardine
Keynote

10:30 - 11:00 Main Stage Capital

Deal Makers

The M&A Ecosystem in Canadian Finance: This panel explores the comprehensive financing environment in Canada from sponsors’ and acquirers’ perspectives. Discussion topics include public markets, strategies for raising capital, and closing transactions, offering insights into the entire deal process.

Cihan Tuncay
Managing Director

Galata Advisors
Moderator
Lawrence Krimker
CEO

ECN Capital
Speaker
David Taylor
Founder & President

VersaBank
Speaker
Sheldon Saidakovsky
Founder & CFO

Propel Holdings
Speaker

10:30 - 11:00 Second Stage Payments

The Battle of the Rails

Stablecoins vs Real-Time Payments: Will Canada’s Real-Time Rail define the 24-hour economy, or will tokenised money become the preferred settlement layer? This debate focuses on liquidity economics, compliance programmability, cross-border efficiency, and finality.

Mena Bellofiore
Partner

Blakes
Moderator
Avinash Chidambaram
CEO

Cybrid
Speaker
Kevin Zhang
CEO

Loon Finance
Speaker
Brian Ford
VP, Business Solutions

ATB
Speaker

11:00 - 11:30 Main Stage Banking

Partnership Behind the Product

How Fintech Programs Get Off the Ground: Behind every successful card, lending, deposit or payments program is a complex partnership between fintechs, banks and infrastructure providers. This session explores how products actually get launched and scaled, from sponsorship and compliance to operations, economics and long-term program management.

Pamela Draper
President

Digital Commerce Bank
Speaker
Jason Young
Chief Legal Officer

Peoples Group
Speaker

11:00 - 11:30 Second Stage Banking

Banking, Disguised

Embedded Finance and the Fight for Distribution: Financial services increasingly appear inside platforms that are not banks. Embedded lending, cards, and payments promise scale, but margins compress and ownership blurs. Who owns the customer? Who carries the risk? And does embedded finance create distribution leverage or channel conflict?

Derek Szeto
CEO

Walnut
Speaker
Scott Elliot
CEO

Slate
Speaker
Simon Bourgeois
CEO

Nmbr
Speaker

11:30 - 12:00 Main Stage Lending

Preparing for the Downturn

When the Consumer Starts to Crack: Delinquencies are rising across credit cards and consumer loan portfolios, and lenders are shifting from growth mode to defence. This panel examines what’s driving the uptick, which segments are flashing first, and how leading teams are adjusting underwriting, limits, and pricing—plus what “modern” collections and loss-mitigation looks like before the cycle turns.

Brent Reynolds
CEO | Founder

Payson
Moderator
Eric Walker
VP, Retail Risk Credit Strategy

RBC
Speaker
Richard Goyder
Chief Credit Risk Officer

Neo Financial
Speaker
Jeanot Dawson
CEO

Karoo
Speaker

11:30 - 12:00 Second Stage AI

The Automated Bank

Scaling Customer Experience with AI and Workflow Automation: Banks are using AI to deliver faster, more personalized service at scale—while keeping cost-to-serve under control. This panel looks at what’s working in production across onboarding, servicing, proactive financial health, and segment-specific journeys, and how teams measure impact (NPS, containment, conversion, churn) without compromising trust or compliance.

Andras Lazar
SVP & Head of Everyday Banking

BMO
Speaker
Geoff Finnie
VP, Head of Health & Travel

Manulife
Speaker
Gum Fa Ng
Vice President

Symcor
Speaker

12:00 - 1:00

Network Lunch

Sponsored by Securian Canada

1:00 - 1:30 Main Stage Banking

Next-Gen Digital Banking

Fireside Chat: In this fireside chat, Tangerine’s CEO will share her perspective on the future of banking a year into her tenure as CEO of the bank. The conversation will cover changing customer expectations, where innovation is reshaping the industry, and how banks can balance speed, simplicity, and trust in the years ahead.

Terri-lee Weeks
President & CEO

Tangerine
Keynote
Claire Brownell
Reporter

The Logic
Moderator

1:30 - 2:00 Main Stage Banking

From Data to Action

Closing the Execution Gap: Financial institutions have invested heavily in data, analytics, and AI—but turning insight into timely customer action is still hard. This panel looks at what’s blocking real-world execution (tech, compliance, operating models) and what’s working across personalization, acquisition, cross-sell, and engagement.

Johnathan Bant
Managing Director

Naehas
Moderator
Michaela Garfield
VP, Growth

President’s Choice Financial
Speaker
John Wang
Global Digital Banking

Deloitte
Speaker
Matthew Bennett
Director & Head of Growth

Tangerine
Speaker

1:30 - 2:00 Second Stage Wealth

Why AI Hasn’t Managed Your Money Yet

AI is everywhere… except in retail wealth: Consumers trust AI for search, writing, and service, but most still rely on familiar models for investing and advice. This panel explores what’s really slowing adoption – accountability, regulation, data and integration, and the bar for proving better outcomes – and what “responsible” AI in portfolio management could look like next.

Salim Naran
President, Growth Portfolio

Questrade
Speaker
Braden Dennis
CEO

Fiscal AI
Speaker
Andrew Peak
CEO

Tilt
Speaker

2:00 - 2:30 Main Stage Banking

Credit Union at Scale

How Servus is Modernizing Member Banking: Servus Credit Union operates at major-institution scale, but with a cooperative, member-first mandate. In this interview, we’ll dig into how a leading Canadian credit union is approaching digital transformation, core technology decisions, fintech partnerships, lending and deposit strategy in a higher-rate world, and what “competing with banks” looks like while staying true to the credit union model

Ian Burns
President | CEO

Servus Credit Union
Keynote

3:00 - 3:30

EQ Finance Awards

The CLA is proud to present the 2026 EQ Bank Finance Awards: Executives and thought leaders who think outside the box to develop and foster innovative concepts and strategies that help advance lending and finance in Canada. Nominate close on April 26th. Nominate candidates here: https://www.canadianlenders.org/awards/

EQ Bank
Sponsored by EQ Bank

4:00 - 6:00

Can I Buy You a Drink?

Cocktail reception & networking: Hunt down that last meeting, close your final deal, and then grab a drink to catchup with old colleagues and new!

Details

Date

May 28th, 2026

Time

8:00 AM - 6:00 PM

Venue

The Quay, 100 Queens Quay E 3rd Floor, Toronto, Ontario

Limited Seats

From CAD 550.00