Wealth One raises $50-million as new owners push to partner with Canadian fintechs

Toronto-based Wealth One Bank of Canada has raised $50-million of new capital to fuel its growth as it looks to position itself as a partner to Canadian fintechs.

Fintechs use technology to deliver financial services more cheaply and efficiently than traditional banks, but most don’t have banking licenses. Instead, they partner with licensed financial institutions that provide underlying banking services, such as accepting deposits from customers.

Wealth One’s new owners see a chance to be that provider. A consortium assembled by Toronto-based investment firm Globalive Corp. acquired the bank last year.

“We think there’s a really great opportunity to empower the Canadian fintechs,” Globalive chairman Anthony Lacavera said in an interview.

“They are just chronically underserved by the major banks.”

Ottawa promised in last week’s federal budget to make legislative changes aimed at bolstering competition in the banking sector by making it easier for new financial institutions to enter the market and grow larger.

Canada’s banking industry is dominated by six big players – Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and National Bank of Canada – which together hold more than 90-per-cent market share.

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Most of the members of the consortium that acquired Wealth One have doubled down on their investment in the recent financing round, Mr. Lacavera said.

That includes Globalive; Western Canadian property developer Ryan Beedie and his direct-investment platform Beedie Capital; Chris Kayat and Gary Mauris, co-founders of mortgage company Dominion Lending Centres Inc.; wealth-management firm Optimize Financial Group; and John Webster, a long-time financial services executive and the bank’s chief executive officer.

Calgary-based insurance financing company Grasslands Finance Corp. did not invest additional capital, although it remains a shareholder, Mr. Lacavera said. There are also six additional investors who Mr. Lacavera declined to name, citing pending regulatory approvals. The financing round closed on Aug. 31.

Mr. Lacavera has high hopes for the challenger bank. He plans to start looking abroad to the U.S. and Britain for investors with the aim of raising another $150-million.

“We have really big ambitions to get it to $10-billion in assets and then list the bank in Canada,” he said.

Wealth One, which has a Schedule I bank licence, has been growing rapidly since last year’s acquisition. On April 30, 2025, before the deal had closed, it had $516-million in assets, primarily uninsured mortgages on residential real estate.

By July 31, 2026, its balance sheet had grown to over $800-million of assets, according to a report by WOWA Data Labs, which provides data and intelligence on the Canadian lending market.

Mr. Webster, Wealth One’s CEO, said he expects that the bank will be profitable by the middle of next year.

Wealth One is engaged in discussions with “all of the major fintechs,” not only about taking deposits but also about other services the bank might be able to offer them, Mr. Webster said.

Serving as a correspondent bank for U.S.-based financial institutions is another potential opportunity, he noted.

Correspondent banking is a financial arrangement where one bank, known as the correspondent bank, provides services such as wire transfers and currency exchange on behalf of another bank, which is called the respondent bank.

Mr. Webster called Wealth One the “fastest-growing bank in both deposits and mortgages in Canada.” However, achieving that growth was not without challenges, particularly when it came to expanding its wholesale deposits, he said.

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Wealth One was founded in 2016 with a $50-million investment and a focus on catering to Chinese-Canadian clients. In April 2023, then-finance minister Chrystia Freeland ordered three of its original shareholders to divest their stakes because of concerns about their alleged ties to the Chinese government.

“We had to overcome some of the reputational damage that was done by the founding group and the previous management and board,” Mr. Webster said.

“The risk guys Google it and they read the story of the named parties. … We’ve had to invest a lot of effort into telling people the story of the new Wealth One.”