Simplii Financial is introducing updates to its app with new tools aimed at attracting more DIY banking clients.
The digital lender said in a news release Tuesday that it is launching a new account type, named the Simplii Account, and is piloting new features like bank account folders.
“Our clients are self-selecting around their attitude toward money and how they want to manage their money,” Atanaska Novakova, the head of Simplii Financial, said in an interview.
“It’s not about age and it’s not even about income or complexity of financial needs. It’s about people who want to be in control, who want good value.”
Simplii Financial is a direct banking brand owned by CIBC, created after CIBC and Loblaw Cos. Ltd. ended their nearly 20-year President’s Choice Financial banking partnership in 2017.
Simplii said the folders feature is piloting this month, which could help users who want to streamline bill payments and spending or set cash aside for a vacation or emergency fund. Customers would also be able to automatically distribute paycheques across folders.
“In the spirit of giving you control, you get to self-select your folders or self-build your folders in your mobile app with a few clicks,” Novakova said, adding that the feature could remove some of the mental load associated with managing finances.
Simplii also said a new payment backup feature will be included in the pilot that would automatically cover certain transactions, reducing the possibility clients would experience insufficient funds fees.
It said it will also roll out other new features in the coming months, including the ability to share folders to simplify things like household expenses.
Simplii said it has also partnered with CIBC Investor’s Edge, allowing clients to invest while accessing funds from their Simplii account.
Currently, the lender has more than two million clients.
After the split between CIBC and Loblaw, Simplii took over everyday banking products such as savings, chequing, registered accounts and mortgages, while at the time PC Financial kept its MasterCard credit cards and PC Plus loyalty program.
Novakova said the company is being intentional with new features.
“Which means that we’re not going to chase flavours of the day, and we’re not going to chase speculative things such as prediction markets and things like that,” she said.
Prediction market trading lets customers make wagers on the outcome of real-world events, though in Canada it is limited by securities regulators to economic, financial or climate matters.
In June, CIBC released poll data suggesting that Canadians remain cautious about prediction markets.
It found that 74 per cent indicated prediction markets are more like gambling than investing, while 57 per cent said they should not be available on investment platforms. The poll was conducted by Ipsos on April 8 and 9, taking responses from 1,001 Canadians.
Novakova also said it is an “exciting time” for Canada’s banking sector as it slowly but surely progresses on implementing open banking.
Open banking, sometimes known as consumer-driven banking, allows individuals and businesses to securely share their financial data across lenders. In essence, it could allow Canadians with multiple accounts across different financial firms to see their entire financial picture on one convenient dashboard.
After years of study, Ottawa got the ball rolling on open banking with legislation to implement it in the 2024 federal budget. In June, the Department of Finance published proposed regulations for open banking and held a 60-day comment period that ended in August.
“We’re very excited about all of that. In fact, the faster the regulation finalizes and gets launched, the better because then we’re ready to integrate them into our solutions and make sure that we take full leverage of that data availability,” she said.
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Daniel Johnson, The Canadian Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2026.
