Canada’s sovereignty call-to-arms has largely been expressed through what we buy. Shoppers fiercely scrutinize labels and corporate ownership to determine whether a product is truly “Canadian.” But while we’re paying closer attention to the origin and composition of the products we’re purchasing, we’re not really thinking about how we pay for them. That needs to change.
Kimberly Prost probably thinks about it every day. The Canadian International Criminal Court judge has been sanctioned by the Donald Trump administration since August 2025 for authorizing investigations into alleged war crimes by American personnel in Afghanistan, as well as cases related to Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Those sanctions mean that when Prost goes on vacation, she needs to phone hotels in advance to explain why she can’t pay for her stay with a credit card.
Prost is navigating a financial shadow ban because global commerce moves through an Americanized network. In 2025, Visa and Mastercard controlled 96 percent of Canada’s credit card market. We have a strong domestic debit system with Interac, but even that independence is eroding: Visa and Mastercard have partnered with Interac on co-badged cards, while many consumers pay with Apple-issued iPhones or use terminals run by American companies, such as Chase, Global Payments, Square, and Stripe.
A system that inconveniences a judge today could, in theory, be turned against a whole country tomorrow. The United Kingdom is reportedly exploring a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard over fears Trump could use United States–owned payment providers to freeze its economy. European officials have warned the continent is dangerously exposed to such coercion.
Products like Interac Konek provide financial institutions with the ability to have a fully Canadian payment stack already, and online functionality with a more traditional debit card - from what I understand, it’s basically an ISO20022 compliant setup that bypasses the larger international payment networks/settlement approaches, allowing Point of Sale systems to communicate directly with banking system providers/financial institutions (for older models, POS purchases go through payment networks that are usually US based – for CC’s they add in another layer for the funding). To turn that into a credit card, it just needs to get connected to a bank account with a line of credit on it, the technology is pretty simple, and arguably available today.
Bigger rub is likely our regulatory environment and the risk allowances that the government permits FIs to take within Canada. Every bank/credit union is heavily pressured into having real estate as a security for all credit/loans – because the govt views it as the ‘safest’ security, and therefore the only one they accept without punishing organisations for “taking too much risk”. Go back to the boomer / gen X days, and it was incredibly common to get a ‘small’ “signature loan” from a local community credit union – like 10-25k in funding, based on a signed doc saying you promise to pay it back, with the security being just your word.
If the regulators changed their risk tolerance to allow FIs to serve retail credit customers more in Canada, and Interac was cool with konek connecting up to accounts with LOCs, this sort of thing ‘could’ roll out super easily/quick. A local community credit union could get you setup with a signature loan for your credit limit / interest rate, connect the interac konek card up to that account, and you could use it online just like a credit card. They could even tie that package to a Home Equity LOC for a lower rate, if the person has that security available – basically ‘building in’ some better debt consolidation than traditional cards.
That won’t likely happen though, especially with the market all in the shitter at present. The regs are watching housing flatline due to things the gov has done – such as an over-reliance on immigration and international trade, both of which went splat in 2024-2025, after already suffering heavy issues during 2020-2022 due to COVID. So the one security they ‘thought’ was super safe, is floundering – they aren’t likely to open up ‘higher risk’ options as a result. The fintechs will likely circumvent all regulation, as that’s basically their role at this point – they come in to the banking market, and declare they can do all sorts of things that are against banking regulations, then they pretend they aren’t banks and get to avoid those regulations entirely. They play by completely different rules, which they tend to set themselves, yet compete for market share with existing players who are limited by gov restrictions. Sorta like how Uber/AirBNB comes in as an illegal taxi company/illegal hotel services, but rather than being banned/fined to non-existence, instead we just change laws to make it sorta legal. Any attempt to regulate them, meets push back from US interests, where the vast majority of these companies are based/funded. You’re more likely to end up with a Google/Apple-Credit account, because they won’t care about Canada’s laws, and Canada can’t stop them from introducing these sorts of higher risk products.
And as for the whole foreign dominance of the financial space – it’s completely captured. The regulators are 100% reliant on US tech companies, with people like the BC FSA hosting their operating environment in MS Cloud, requiring all industry players to submit detailed personal information reports about borrowers into that space for ‘oversight’ and ‘risk management’ purposes. The FSA literally cannot regulate BC’s financial services to avoid US tech, because the regulators themselves are wholly captured. BC’s regulators have openly stated they think we should have just 4 or so credit unions in the province, and has been taking steps for the past 10-15 years to achieve that goal by smothering / forcing smaller credit unions to merge. Look at something like the BC Rent bank – a $21 million dollar hand out by BC’s government to Vancity, the largest CU in the province, to provide rent-assistance to communities across the province. A service need that would previously be met ‘naturally’ (without huge investments from gov) by small community credit unions, the gov instead funded the biggest, giving Vancity a leg-up in eroding small CU markets / value propositions. Vancity’s also been in the news, saying they’re gonna abandon that whole thing if the gov doesn’t continue funding them – the govs approach pretty much eliminated that financial assistance option for small communities, and worsened the playing field for individuals. BC has only 1 credit union that I know of, that is open bond (open to the public), with its banking system made in Canada, by a Canadian company, using Canadian developers, and hosted on a Canadian cloud. Only 1, and it’s likely gonna go poof in the near future is my bet, cause it isn’t really ‘marketed’ that way, and there’s not enough interest in this sort of thing for people to give a shit.