Wealthsimple wants to expand its banking to kids and businesses

Canadian fintech company Wealthsimple is announcing new products and services that could bring it into bigger competition with the larger, traditional banks.

The company announced at a Calgary event that it’s launching accounts for kids and teenagers, along with systems that allow family members to control each other’s accounts with permission.

In an interview with CBC News, Wealthsimple senior director of product Danish Ajmeri said part of the company’s new push is to help “parents and kids build better ways of managing and saving money,” with account features that will include parents being able to pay their kids directly by topping up the bank’s interest rate paid to a child’s account.

It’s also planning to launch a U.S. dollar chequing account with no account fees, promising cross-border access to both American and Canadian payments by fall of 2026.

The company is also launching a feature where clients can designate someone else to control their investment accounts with permission.

“What we’ve learned and heard from clients is … [some] parents want their kids to manage their money on their behalf,” said Ajmeri.

“Today, they navigate all sorts of really insecure ways of doing that, whether that’s sharing their passwords or trying to call in and pretend to be your father or mother.”

The company said the feature to be able to designate someone else to take investment actions on behalf of a family member will be available by summer 2026.

That feature would need to be closely monitored, said Shannon Lee Simmons, a Toronto-based financial planner and chartered investment manager.

“Where’s the line, and where is the boundary around what they can and can’t do,” she said.

However, she suggested there could be an advantage to the concept, if properly secured.

“A lot of my clients who are the sandwich generation clients are taking care of their parents finances right now…. It is really difficult if parents forget a password,” she said.

“Let’s make sure it’s done properly so that nobody gets harmed.”

Wealthsimple’s Ajmeri said the company believes that unofficial and unsupported practices such as password sharing are less secure.

“Because [sharing access] is initiated from your account, you have full control over who has the ability to take action on your account,” said Ajmeri.

He also said security features such as passkey authentication are in place to maintain security, and that the company doesn’t consider a lack of physical branches a barrier to maintaining trust with clients.

In late 2025, the fintech reported a security breach that leaked some clients’ financial details, but at the time said no funds were stolen,…