Is Your Money in a Fintech App Actually Insured in Canada?

That slick app with the chequing-style balance looks like a bank, but it usually isn’t one. Many Canadian fintechs don’t hold a banking licence, and they aren’t members of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation. Whether your money is protected if something goes wrong depends on where it’s held and how it’s labelled. Here’s how CDIC’s guidance for fintechs works, and what you should ask before you park a paycheque in an app.

What CDIC Actually Insures

CDIC protects eligible deposits at its member institutions, which are banks and similar deposit-taking firms. According to its coverage page, each category of deposits is insured separately up to $100,000, including principal and interest. The categories include deposits in one name, joint deposits, trust deposits and registered plans such as the RRSP, TFSA, RESP and FHSA.

Eligible products include deposits in Canadian or foreign currency, GICs and other term deposits. Mutual funds, stocks, bonds and ETFs aren’t covered, and neither are cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins. That last point matters if you’re weighing a digital-asset product, as we covered in our look at Canada’s draft stablecoin rules.

Why a Fintech Isn’t a Bank

CDIC describes a fintech as a company that uses online platforms or apps to offer financial services. Fintechs lack banking licences and aren’t CDIC members, so the fintech itself isn’t insured. What can be insured is money that the fintech places as eligible deposits at a member institution, and the details decide who’s protected.

The same split shows up in regulation. Payment firms face their own rules, which we explained in our guide to who has to register with the Bank of Canada, but registering as a payment service provider doesn’t make a company a deposit-taker.

Pooled Accounts Versus Trust Accounts

Two setups look identical from your phone and behave very differently in a failure.

• Pooled account in the fintech’s name. The fintech is treated as the sole depositor. In CDIC’s words, “CDIC’s coverage only applies to the fintech and not their clients.” You’d have no individual protection.
• Trust account. CDIC says protection on trust accounts applies to each beneficiary up to $100,000 of eligible deposits. To get there, the fintech, as trustee, has to ask the member institution to designate the account as a trust account and supply each beneficiary’s name, address and the amount owed.

In other words, the paperwork behind the app is what carries the protection. A trust arrangement done properly can extend coverage to you. One that isn’t set up that way can’t.

Here’s a simple example. Say you hold C$40,000 in a fintech’s cash account. If the app sits on a properly designated trust account at a member institution, that balance can count as your own protected trust deposit, insured separately from anything else you hold there. If it sits in a pooled account in the company’s name, the protection belongs to the company, and, as CDIC puts it, a failed fintech goes through conventional bankruptcy and liquidation rather than a CDIC payout. The balance on your screen looks the same in both cases.

Going Past $100,000

Some fintechs have built products around the limit. In 2023, The Logic reported that Wealthsimple said it could offer up to $300,000 of coverage on eligible cash deposits. The idea is that, acting as a deposit broker through its securities dealer, a firm can hold your funds at several member institutions. That’s a company’s claim, so check the current terms of any product that advertises it, along with which institutions hold the money.

Questions to Ask Before You Deposit

CDIC suggests three questions for any fintech you’re considering:

• Is my money held by a CDIC member?
• How is my money placed at the CDIC member?
• How much of my money is protected by CDIC?

A good answer names the partner institution, explains the account structure and says how much of your balance CDIC would protect. A vague one is a reason to wait. CDIC’s by-law also prohibits false, misleading or deceptive claims about CDIC membership or what it protects, and CDIC asks people who suspect a misrepresentation to contact info@cdic.ca.

What to Watch

CDIC has proposed changes to its disclosure rules, published on July 4, 2026, that McCarthy Tétrault summarized. They’d require annual staff training and clearer explanations when deposits are sold under a trade name. We couldn’t confirm that they’ve been finalized, so watch for a final version. Until then, the simplest habit is the best one: find out which bank actually holds your money.