BMO has launched a client-facing financial planning portal, My Financial Progress, based on Conquest Planning’s software, the bank announced recently.

The platform is available on BMO’s app and online banking website.

“Most people don’t want to do financial planning, and they don’t want to do budgeting either, so this is something that gives them really foundational pieces,” said Gayle Ramsay, head of everyday banking at BMO.

Instead of releasing a simplified version of Conquest to clients, BMO chose the holistic version, allowing clients to create personalized goals with different time horizons and generate tailored financial strategies to reach those goals. The tool also provides nudges and suggestions to help clients stay on track.

My Financial Progress syncs clients’ BMO accounts with the platform so strategies update in real time based on their assets. Clients can also click a link to book an appointment with an advisor.

Some clients like to know what they need to work on before meeting with a financial advisor, and My Financial Progress helps them prepare for a more complex conversation, Ramsay said.

RBC joins MIT fintech research, and announces AI model

RBC has joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) fintech and AI research initiative.

The bank’s three-year membership gives it access to CSAIL’s graduate students for recruitment, as well as technical briefings and educational workshops, according to a release.

The partnership also includes early access to research on machine learning, predictive analytics, secure computation, cybersecurity and financial applications of data science. RBC and CSAIL will collaborate on research into LLM safety, bias mitigation and financial crime prevention.

Separately, RBC announced that several of the bank’s products and services use its Asynchronous Temporal Model, an AI system that provides banking insights.

Developed by RBC Borealis — the bank’s in-house research institute — and trained on billions of client transactions, the AI model is part of Lumina, RBC’s data platform. Lumina collects information from all of the bank’s lines of business and can process up to 10 billion transactions per minute.

RBC said all of its AI applications meet regulatory requirements and that client data never leaves the bank’s control.

Online insurance sales platform underwritten by Humania

Toronto-based third-party life insurance administrator Oneday has launched an online life insurance sales platform, it said in a release.

The life insurance policies are underwritten by Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., carrier Humania, which also underwrites policies for Emma, another Canadian third-party administrator.

Oneday offers simplified-issue life insurance that require no medical exams and promises decisions in 24 hours based on one questionnaire.

RBC Wealth Management uses and invests in d1g1t

RBC Wealth Management has begun using Toronto-based wealth tech firm d1g1t’s performance and risk analytics software, d1g1t announced recently.

The platform includes performance reporting, client portal access, portfolio management and billing tools.

RBC has also made an investment in d1g1t, though terms of the deal were not disclosed. The firm said it will use the funds to expand its team and increase adoption of its platform in Canada and the U.S.

Financial services firm partners with Microsoft

Global financial services firm FNZ has entered a five-year partnership with Microsoft to develop AI applications for the financial sector, the company announced last week.

FNZ has integrated Microsoft’s Azure AI into its platform, which is used by approximately 650 financial institutions managing nearly US$2 trillion in assets.

Microsoft’s AI technology allows FNZ’s platform to deliver more personalized user experiences, analyze large data sets and develop tools for risk management and compliance. Microsoft 365 Copilot will also be used in FNZ’s middle- and back-office operations.

It’s a scenario no advisor wants to be faced with.

Imagine turning on your computer one morning to find your systems frozen and your files inaccessible. Same for your staff. Then you find the ransom note, with contact details for the cyber criminal holding your clients’ data hostage.

These crooks are increasingly targeting small- and medium-sized businesses, and financial advisors are a juicy target, a panel of cybersecurity advisors told the Advocis Symposium in Toronto last month.

“You folks are like a gold mine of data,” Neal Jardine, chief cyber intelligence and claims officer at BOXX Insurance said.

“You deal with money on a daily basis. You hold information about clients. You will be targeted if you are not already,” he said, adding that smaller businesses account for up to nine out of 10 of the financial crime and fraud claims he deals with.

Dramatic to down-low

The type of cyber attack advisors may face range from a ransomware attack that paralyzes their entire business and costs millions to resolve to a stealthy attack targeting one client.

In the former, payment demands can be steep — around 5% of revenues, Jardine said. One advisor client, he said, recently got a ransomware demand for $10 million, with the perpetrator eventually coming down to about $6.7 million (which his client could not afford to pay).

At the other end, criminals may target much smaller amounts. Jardine said one advisor followed a client’s emailed instructions to cash in and withdraw $20,000 from an account, only to hear from the client later that they never made the request. On investigation, BOXX found that the client’s Gmail account had been hacked after they’d clicked on a phishing link.

The request contained the right documentation and client signature, but the advisor didn’t notice that it came from the wrong email address — one letter had been changed by the hacker.

Stolen data and identity theft that may follow from data breaches can also lead to expensive lawsuits from clients, who may find that they need to monitor credit activity in their name indefinitely.

But perhaps the most devastating risk to advisors is the reputational hit that comes with a major data breach.

“You want to damage your reputation, send a notice to a client saying all their information is now available on the dark web,” Jardine said.

With so much at stake for advisors, the panel outlined best practices that can reduce the chances of facing an attack or avoid the worst repercussions if you are targeted.

Training

Malware, including ransomware, can enter advisors’ systems via multiple points, including a single employee clicking on a malicious link. Training on cybersecurity tools and best practices should include all staff, as human error is a factor in 90% of cyber attacks, Jardine said.

“I can tell a computer system not to do certain things,” he said. “You folks, I can’t control. You’re going to click on stuff, you’re going to open stuff.”

Insurance providers such as BOXX and Zurich provide free training that includes basic education on what financial crime and fraud is and how to identify it; why data encryption, strong passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA) matter; and the need to verify payment requests.

Back up your data

In the case of a ransomware attack, you can rebuild your database if you have it backed up securely. That means you don’t need to pay the ransom, Jardine said.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a backup, paying the ransom is one of the quickest ways to get back on your feet again, said Julian Halton, senior underwriter, professional liability and cyber at Zurich Insurance. Otherwise, “you’re just a bunch of dead laptops in a room.”

Have a data retention policy

A data retention policy should spell out how long you will keep different types of data on file.

In one data breach case Jardine dealt with last year, an advisor’s email was hacked, and they had to notify 1,000 people that hackers had their information. “They had 20 years of client information all neatly organized in their email.”

Check out third-party apps

Halton said advisors should familiarize themselves with and use the cybersecurity features available through third-party apps.

“You probably have much more MFA, much more encryption, much more backup than you think you do,” Halton said. “[For many] third-party tools, IT vendors will have very good backup systems in place and MFA on login, even though it might be annoying,” Halton said.

At the same time, as advisors start to use tools driven by AI, such as note-taking apps to assist with record keeping, they need to do their due diligence to avoid putting sensitive data at risk.

“Be conscious that you’re putting data out there,” Halton said. Advisors should look into the vendor company, their security levels and privacy policy.

Jardine added staff who may be using tools like ChatGPT — whether approved or not — should be trained on the importance of anonymizing data.

Stick to the protocol

In some cases, clients insist on communicating with advisors using methods that aren’t secure. If advisors act on requests through such channels that turn out to be fraudulent, the liability is with the advisor, Jardine said.

“If you’ve set up established protocols and communication methods with the client, and the client chooses to deviate from it, how do you know it’s the client?” he said. “What’s your strategy for verifying them?”

Jardine said if you do get a client request via an unapproved channel, you should send a standard response explaining that it’s not a secure way to communicate — without providing any information about the client in case it’s a bad actor.

The response can explain that criminals may use these channels to get access to client information and accounts, and to infect the advisor’s systems with malware.

Spread the word

The panel also noted advisors should communicate with clients about cybersecurity proactively and let them how their data is being safeguarded. This can include reminders about established communication protocols.

Plan ahead

Have a plan in place to respond to an incident before it happens, the panel stressed. How will you communicate what’s happened to employees and clients? What will you say? “Think it through in advance, so that you’re not trying to decide when you’re in a complete trauma,” said Jack Mazakian, vice-president, Advocis Broker Services, who moderated the session.

Jardine suggested printing out phone contact lists, response plans and your insurance policy. If you have a cyber-insurance policy, Jardine also advised not to store it on your computer, as the first thing a bad actor will do is search for “policy” to see what your coverage is.

Cyber insurance

A cyber insurance policy can provide coverage for legal and regulatory costs, third-party liability, cyber-service costs for data breach victims, lost profits in the event of a related business disruption and the costs of managing your reputation after a cyber breach. But it’s not necessary for all advisors to have cyber insurance, the panellists said.

Being able to qualify for cyber insurance already puts you in a lower-risk category, Jardine said, as you will already be complying with basic best practices like using MFA and putting a limit on the number of password login attempts on systems.

“The insurance is there to kind of bring a standard to things. So instead of saying everyone in the room needs insurance, I think it’s better to say that these are kind of the minimum controls that you should have in place, and insurance will come along and provide you with loss transfer when you have those.”

An AI-powered notetaking software can help advisors save time by transcribing meetings, drafting follow-up emails and searching through notes. But it takes time to choose one that’s right for your practice.

Advisor.ca reached out to experienced users to find out how they made their choices. Their guidance — look for apps that recognize Canadian financial terms, integrate with other practice management software and meet security requirements.

We also interviewed the CEOs of three U.S.-based software providers that cater to the Canadian market: Focal, Jump and Zocks. While the main features are similar, they give advisors different levels of workflow customization.

The app must know Canada

With many notetaking apps developed in the U.S., Canadian advisors should look for options that recognize financial terms specific to Canada, such as RRSP and TFSA. Those with francophone clients might also want French-language support.

All three apps can recognize Canadian financial terminology. Jump and Zocks can transcribe in French while Focal will support French transcriptions beginning March 21.

Software integration

Each advisor’s technology stack is unique, so they should ensure that the notetaking app they choose integrates with their practice’s virtual meeting and customer relationship management (CRM) software.

One advisor said he was more willing to use a specific notetaking app because it integrated with his CRM and calendar software. However, another advisor noted users should check with their firm to ensure they have permission to do so.

Focal, Jump and Zocks all work with major CRM software like Redtail, Salesforce and Wealthbox, in addition to video-meeting programs like Google Meets, Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

Once integrated, Focal can consolidate discussions from previous meetings to generate an agenda ahead of a client call, and draft a to-do list and follow-up emails after the call. It can also take information from conversations to fill out forms.

Focal recently released its ask-me-anything feature. It lets advisors ask the AI questions like how many kids the client has or their level of risk tolerance.

Zocks doesn’t create its own audio or video recordings when it joins a call as a security feature. But advisors can upload separate recordings for recordkeeping and transcription.

Zocks can trigger workflows with a linked CRM and draft a follow-up email for the advisor after a client meeting. Advisors can choose what they want to include in the email and select whether it’s drafted in paragraphs or bullet points. It can also pull information from the CRM and past conversations to fill in forms and notify the advisor of missing information.

Users can ask Zocks’ AI to pull client data from conversations, CRM data and emails to provide information, such as drawing a family tree. In addition, advisors can query their database to pinpoint, for example, clients who don’t have life insurance.

Jump users can choose whether to retain the audio or video recording. The app creates a one-pager for the advisor ahead of a client meeting and drafts follow-up tasks and emails. Advisors can customize the automated post-meeting workflow.

As well, Jump’s AI can fill in forms, plug financial data into planning software and track keywords in meeting summaries. Its ask-anything feature can dig into a specific client’s historical conversations or search the entire client pool for answers.

Although AI is able to draw information quickly from multiple sources, advisors say their peers should always double-check the source of the information to ensure it’s accurate.

Security

Security is top of mind for advisors implementing AI-powered tools into their practice. One advisor said he was willing to pay a premium for an app with strong security safeguards.

All three apps are compliant with SOC 2 Type 2, an international standard for auditing information technology controls for service organizations.

Focal is built on Microsoft Azure’s cloud architecture. Its AI models do not store private information and never use client data for training. AI output is also protected by a virtual private network and end-to-end encryption.

Jump’s AI does not remember personally identifiable information and does not use it to train its models. Advisors can customize data retention and archiving preferences and make standard disclosure statements.

Zocks is designed to be geofenced and geolocated with data centres in the U.S., U.K. and Germany for the EU. While Canadian law doesn’t require data to be domiciled in Canada, Zocks is adding a Canadian data centre in the second quarter.

Pricing

While advisors with a firm might have technology provided to them, software pricing is a major factor for independent advisors. One advisor said he switched software providers when he was “priced out” of a more expensive app.

Note-taking apps offer different tiers with more expensive versions having additional features or unlimited transcriptions. There’s also a discount on annual subscriptions over monthly plans and all three companies offer enterprise plans with custom pricing.

Focal’s cheapest version starts at US$50 a month when billed annually, which supports up to 20 meetings per month. For US$100 a month, it will support unlimited meetings and include collaboration features with other team members.

Jump starts at US$75 a month when billed annually, limited to one seat and 60 AI outputs a month. Unlimited AI outputs start at US$100 a month.

Zocks costs US$67 a month when billed annually for its standard version, which supports 50 meetings per month. For US$109 a month, advisors get 100 meetings monthly. Additional meetings cost US$0.99 each for both plans. It’s not widely advertised, but a discount is available for Canadian advisors.

Methodology

This article was created with the input of the following advisors: Carlo Valle, founder of Delta Financial Analytics in Montreal; Christian Batistelli, senior wealth advisor at Unified Advisory Group, Assante Financial Management in Bowmanville, Ont.; and Scott Sather, president and financial planner at Awaken Wealth Management in Regina.

All three software firms responded with demos and interviews: John Connell, co-founder and CEO of Focal in San Francisco; Mark Gilbert, founder and CEO of Zocks in San Francisco; and Parker Ence, co-founder and CEO of Jump in Salt Lake City.

The article was updated to include feature changes Focal made between the time of the interview and the publication date.

After spending $1 billion from 2023 to 2025 to upgrade its digital capabilities, including artificial intelligence (AI), Manulife has so far rolled out 35 generative AI use cases in Canada, the U.S. and Asia that are helping serve customers and employees.

In Canada, Manulife has used AI to automate receipt digitization for group benefits claims. The system can read non-standard documents, understand the context, extract relevant information and start the right claims process, said Jodie Wallis, global chief analytics officer with Manulife, in an interview.

The insurer, which said in a release it plans to deploy an additional 70 applications by the end of 2025, reaped $600 million of benefits from AI in 2024. It expects to generate a threefold return on investment through 2027, according to its fourth quarter report.

Wallis noted how the technology has advanced in a short time. Just four years ago, the AI was still undergoing supervised training, where humans codified hundreds of thousands of receipts so the system could learn what to look for.

“We don’t have to train anymore,” Wallis said. “AI in the generative sense is able to anticipate what the various components of the receipt might be, … validate them and move them through the process.”

Furthermore, three-quarters of the insurer’s global workforce is engaged with generative AI through learning and immersion in tools, including ChatMFC, a generative AI assistant Manulife introduced last year.

ChatMFC is available to all Manulife employees and full-time contractors globally, Wallis said.

Part of the insurer’s AI strategy is to “innovate locally, scale globally,” where the tool development occurs locally in multiple places before it’s deployed in other markets, Wallis said. “Each of the geographies and each of the businesses brings their own lens to it.”

For instance, the U.S. is mostly a unilingual market while Asian contexts are multilingual, Wallis said. Hence, the AI developed in Asia can distinguish between languages, translate them and provide a response in the appropriate language.

A generative AI tool in Singapore and Japan helps insurance agents create personalized engagement with clients based on needs, preferences, demographic data and transaction histories.

Agents in Singapore and Japan could have a portfolio of more than 200 customers, so it’s difficult to engage with all of them personally several times a year, Wallis said. The AI helps agents use relevant information to craft an opener script for an email or a text message.

Manulife is also developing several AI applications, such as a coaching tool that lets agents interactively practise client conversations, which it plans to bring to Canada.

San Francisco-based tech firm Waterlily, which developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can predict a person’s long-term care needs, closed a US$7-million seed round recently, the company announced.

Waterlily’s AI analyzes an individual’s demographic, medical and financial information against about 500,000 data points to predict their likelihood of needing long-term care, the age at which their needs may start, how those needs may change over time and the level of care required, Lily Vittayarukskul, founder and CEO of Waterlily, said in an interview.

For example, mental health questions are predictive of how intense a potential long-term care event could be, Vittayarukskul said.

“[It’s] not a crystal ball,” she said. “[But] it’s a whole lot better than just assuming you’re the national average.”

Then, the AI uses the submitted information to recommend protection products.

Most advisors grow their assets under management by selling non-insurance products, so they don’t speak to their clients about long-term care as often as they should, Vittayarukskul said.

Waterlily is carrier agnostic. Advisors can upload any product from any carrier and Waterlily will remove all the marketing “bells and whistles” within a minute to extract the payment and payout terms, Vittayarukskul said.

Waterlily launched in March 2024 and has already onboarded eight large insurance and distribution companies in the U.S., including Prudential and Financial Independence Group, Vittayarukskul said.

The seed round was led by Brewer Lane Ventures with participation from Genworth, Nation Wide and Edward Jones Ventures. Tim Kneeland, former CEO of GE Insurance and Transamerica Long Term Care, also participated.

“We think [the investors] can help us unlock distribution in some shape or form across the supplier space,” Vittayarukskul said.

Waterlily hasn’t moved north yet, but it’s already in discussions with large Canadian insurers.

Guaranteed electronic funds transfers come to Canada

Montreal-based financial data aggregator Flinks announced its guaranteed electronic funds transfer to enable real-time account funding.

The traditional electronic funds transfer process in Canada can take several days to process, which could lead to missed investment opportunities for consumers and missed deposit opportunities for financial institutions, Flinks said in a release.

The guaranteed electronic funds transfer offers same-day and risk-free payments by checking account balances and the client’s identity, Flinks said.

RBC rolls out mobile mortgage renewals

RBC clients can now renew their mortgage through the RBC mobile app, the bank announced Thursday.

In the past, most renewals were processed in person. With the mobile option, clients can choose mortgage terms and virtually sign documents in minutes but can pause to speak with an advisor if they want more information, the release said.

Bank of Montreal has joined IBM’s Quantum Network.

The move, announced on Feb. 6, makes it the first Canadian bank to join the network designed to give businesses, academic institutions and research labs access to quantum computing applications that can improve operational efficiency.

BMO plans to use IBM’s quantum computing applications to optimize portfolios and detect fraud, said Kristin Milchanowski, BMO’s chief AI and data officer.

“We have reached quantum utility,” Milchanowski, who has a PhD in quantum mathematics, said in an interview. “It’s not something that’s far off or unreachable or just hypothetical, it’s literally here now.”

Quantum computing can analyze more factors than classical computing, making it useful in portfolio construction, she said.

It can also speed up the process of pricing and assessing trade risk, which can take several hours with existing technology. Quantum computing has the potential to process the same information in minutes.

“Every fraction of a second when you’re trading makes a difference,” Milchanowski said.

BMO doesn’t have a timeline yet for an operational roll-out of the technology.

Although quantum computers can perform the same tasks as classical computing, IBM still has work to do to increase computing power, Milchanowski said. Quantum advantage is a future stage that will be unlocked by hardware advances, when quantum computing can perform processes better and faster than classical computing.

Margin trading on Wealthsimple

Wealthsimple has introduced margin trading for eligible clients, the firm announced on Feb. 5.

“We suspected margin accounts would be popular among those who asked for it … it’s one of our largest waitlists ever,” said Swapnil Parikh, vice-president of product with Wealthsimple, in a release.

Wealthsimple clients who are now eligible to open a margin account already have more than $40 million in margin balances accrued, Parikh noted.

Margin trading refers to the practice of borrowing from a broker to purchase securities, with the purchased securities used as collateral for the loan. In Wealthsimple’s case, clients use their existing funds in Wealthsimple accounts as collateral.

Wealthsimple won’t charge exposure or maintenance fees, Parikh noted.

The firm offers margin rates of 5.7% for those with less than $100,000 in assets, 5.2% for clients with $100,000 to $499,999, and 4.7% for those with $500,000 or more in assets, according to Wealthsimple’s website.

Margin trading has risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Wealthsimple has a “margin health tracker” that updates daily and instructs investors on what to do if they approach a margin call.

Courts could use artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up probate and uncontested divorce applications, lawyers say. The software can be trained on publicly available cases to learn how to flag problematic applications to a judge. But that will be difficult to achieve until probate processes are fully digitized.

About 90% of the probate cases Michael von Keitz sees are uncontested, said the senior associate lawyer at O’Sullivan Estate Lawyers LLP in Toronto.

If all the required documents and evidence are submitted and a judge doesn’t flag it as problematic, regular and small probate applications are usually processed within 15 and five business days respectively, the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General said in an email. But that hasn’t been typical of lawyers’ experience.

“It’s inconvenient for executors to wait for two to three months, depending on which courthouse you’re at, to get this probate certificate,” said Christopher Crisman-Cox, an estate and trust litigation lawyer at Miller Thomson LLP in Waterloo. And it can sometimes take much longer in large cities like Toronto.

Applying for a probate certificate is a routine process of filling in beneficiary information, estate value and attaching the will, Crisman-Cox said. An AI could train on publicly available court records to review probate applications and flag problematic ones to a judge for additional scrutiny.

Since the AI will only be processing information as opposed to generating information, and the output will be subject to judicial review, hallucinations won’t be a main concern, von Keitz said.

But provincial courthouses haven’t fully digitized the probate application process yet. “If you’re dealing with physical documents, it’s much harder to have the AI assist,” Crisman-Cox said.

The best way forward in Ontario is to allow electronic wills, von Keitz said. Currently, B.C. is the only jurisdiction in Canada that allows electronic wills. A digital document will be more portable; it can be seamlessly remitted to a court digitally.

“Physical documents can be lost. They can be placed into piles that aren’t seen for months,” said von Keitz.

Ontario committed $166 million over seven years to digitize its court system in 2021. The program will replace paper-based processes with an online platform including electronic filing, the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General said.

However, the digitization project’s first phase, which will go live in July, and the court case search tool which launched in 2020, both exclude probate cases, according to the ministry’s 2023-24 court services division annual report.

“At this time, Ontario does not have any plans to propose legislative amendments with respect to digital wills,” the ministry said. “However, ministry officials responsible for wills and estates policy and legislation continue to monitor developments in other jurisdictions.”

Instead, probate forms were simplified, more staff were hired to process probate applications and an analytical tool was implemented to identify improvement opportunities, the annual report said.

Similarly, electronic death certificates and electronic payments to the court that can be held in escrow would also increase efficiency, von Keitz said. “I feel that it’s another efficiency that would be relatively straightforward to implement.”

Digitizing documents and training a new AI model is labour intensive. With many Ontario courts understaffed, it’s unlikely they can spare the staff to implement the software under current conditions, von Keitz said. He hopes the government can devote resources to modernize this judicial function.

Toronto-based wealthtech OneVest completed a US$20-million Series B funding round, the company announced Wednesday.

The funds will be used for growth and to develop artificial intelligence (AI) tools and product features to support onboarding clients and rebalancing portfolios with alternative investments, Amar Ahluwalia, OneVest’s CEO, said in an interview.

The firm’s first AI tools, including a feature that makes recommendations to financial advisors on next best actions, will be released later this quarter, Ahluwalia said. “The key value [proposition] there is giving the advisor the ability to spend more time with the customer.”

Advisors can onboard a client with alternative assets and rebalance a portfolio that includes alternatives, so the backend system supports the asset type.

The round was led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from new investors Allianz Life Ventures and TIAA Ventures and returning investors OMERS Ventures, Deloitte Ventures, Fin Capital, Luge Capital and Pivot Investment Partners.

Salesforce has experience working with large financial institutions and TIAA is a large global asset manager, so OneVest will benefit from its investors’ expertise to sign on large asset managers onto its platform.

BlackRock and Vanguard are already OneVest customers and the wealthtech will announce several more partnerships in the coming weeks, Ahluwalia said.

Alberta bank uses Google AI

Edmonton-headquartered ATB Financial has adopted Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence for its 5,000 staff, Google announced.

Gemini for Google Workspace will give staff access to generative AI in applications like Gmail, Google Docs and Google Sheets.

ATB has been a longstanding Google Workspace enterprise customer. The decision to implement generative AI tools came after a pilot program in 2024 where hundreds of employees used the technology for tasks like drafting marketing materials and summarizing content, Google said in a release.

Those who participated in the pilot reported saving up to two hours a week.

“In the pilot program, we saw that Google AI offered significant time savings and productivity gains for team members, allowing them to automate routine tasks, access information quickly, and collaborate more effectively, all while ensuring data is secure and trustworthy,” John Tarnowski, chief client experience and technology officer at ATB Financial, said in a release.

Parliament’s prorogation means government bills will have to start from scratch when the House starts sitting again on March 24. That leaves previously announced — but not yet enacted — changes to the capital gains tax inclusion rate and 2024 charitable donations deadline in doubt.

Financial planning software firms like Conquest Planning and Snap Projections have confirmed that their applications account for these uncertainties.

The Liberal government announced an increase in the federal capital gains inclusion rate to 66.67% from 50% in the 2024 Budget, and more recently announced a charitable donations extension to Feb. 28, 2025.

Conquest Planning has provided a toggle between the two capital gains inclusion rates since May 2024. The default option is the existing 50% rate until the new proposed rate becomes law, said Ken Lotocki, chief product officer with Conquest. The charitable donations extension is also included in that toggle.

Advisors can also see a chart showing the impact of the proposed capital gains tax change’s impact on a client’s portfolio. “We’ve given our users the ability to compare and contrast different things when they’re having these types of conversations [with clients],” Lotocki said. “You can just turn things on and off and play around with it.”

Snap Projections’ default capital gains inclusion rate is set to 66.67%, but advisors can change that with one click. “We speak with our users regularly on this, and we have found they are overwhelmingly using the new rates to remain conservative while this policy remains in limbo,” Snap Projections said in an email.

Snap Projections’ software allows users to model cash flow in a future year while claiming it for a current year, so there’s no additional feature needed to respond to the proposed charitable deduction date changes.

IPC to deliver digital proposals through CapIntel

Investment Planning Counsel (IPC) has adopted CapIntel’s platform for client-advisor engagement, the fintech company recently announced. IPC will be one of the first firms to deliver CapIntel’s digital client proposals.

Clients will be able to access digital proposals through an interactive web link, rather than the traditional presentation in static PDF format, said Rob Crnkovic, co-founder and chief revenue officer.

CapIntel has worked with Quadrus, the exclusive dealer for Canada Life Mutual Funds, since 2021 and Canada Life acquired IPC in 2023. About three-quarters (more than 700) of IPC advisors have started using CapIntel, Crnkovic said.

CapIntel initially offered a non-connected product to Quadrus in 2023 and spent 2024 integrating it with Quadrus’s other tech tools, Crnkovic said. The experience helped CapIntel create a fully connected platform of IPC right out of the gate.

RBC builds AI platform with Cohere

RBC has partnered with enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) firm Cohere to build a generative AI platform called North for Banking, the bank announced this month.

It integrates Cohere’s proprietary models with RBC’s internal platforms to create a customized version of Cohere’s financial services industry platform, said Ivan Zhang, co-founder of Cohere, in a release. “By prioritizing security and data privacy protections, companies can have peace of mind as they deploy it internally at scale.”

Big Six Canadian banks have ranked among the global top 25 for AI adoption, with RBC coming in third overall.

Toronto investment firm adopts d1g1t

Toronto-based investment management firm Virgo Digital Asset Management (formerly Arxnovum Investments) has adopted d1g1t’s wealth management platform to plan active strategies and complex portfolios for accredited investors, d1g1t said in a release. Virgo can also generate regulatory CRM2 reports with d1g1t to ensure compliance.

In 2025, Canadian financial institutions will continue using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve backend efficiencies and start using generative AI to serve consumers. That’s according to Sam Sebastian, vice-president and Canada country manager for Google Cloud.

Google’s clients are using Gemini AI for multimodal analysis of text, video and audio to respond to call centre requests, Sebastian said. “We’re seeing our financial institutions lean in more on that than any other [sector].”

Large financial services firms launched AI pilot projects in 2023 that evolved into wider adoption last year, Sebastian said. Many of the pain points firms focused on were in backend efficiencies such as summarizing large volumes of information.

Faced with a national productivity challenge, many Canadian financial institutions looked to AI to fill the gap, Sebastian said.

“We have seen Canadian organizations pursue this opportunity at about the same pace as folks down south,” he added. “We’ve got to take advantage of this both patriotically as well as for individual organizations.”

Canadian banks were among the top 25 global AI adopters last year in a ranking by London-based financial services intelligence firm Evident. RBC ranked third overall, with TD ninth, Scotiabank 20^th, CIBC 22^nd and BMO in 24^th place.

AI can also be a threat however. as bad actors harness the new technology, Sebastian said. Financial organizations can use generative AI to help spot cyber vulnerabilities. Firms should also have a good governance plan and work with reputable technology vendors that have a secure enterprise platform.

Companies need to start embracing AI from a culture and training perspective, Sebastian said.

“The more you use these tools, either personally or professionally, the more you’re going to get used to them … and more opportunities will begin to expose themselves,” he said.

Options trading available on Webull’s registered accounts

Canadians using Webull can now trade options in TFSA and RRSP accounts, the online brokerage app announced in December.

“Since Webull Canada’s launch of options trading for cash and margin accounts in late September, we have seen a growing demand for the product with TFSA and RRSP account types,” Michael Constantino, CEO of Webull Canada, said in a release.

The app’s trading hours were recently extended to 4:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EST from Monday to Friday.