This article builds on the first one.

EQ Bank began in 2016 as a low-cost deposit engine for its parent, Equitable Bank. High rates, no branches, clean app, good funding for the mortgage book, job done. Seven years later, the playbook feels crowded. Neo Financial, Tangerine, and even credit unions now copy the same perks. My industry-wide audit (email me if you’d like access) shows the real fight has shifted to mental territory: a single word a brand can prove with hard trade-offs.

Big banks crowd trust and convenience. Wealthsimple is sprinting toward control. “Openness” is still unclaimed. EQ Bank is already halfway there; it just hasn’t nailed the sacrifice that makes openness a moat.

The incentive knot

Equitable Bank rewards its leaders when three things happen:

1. Deposits rise faster than the bank’s cost of money.
2. The loan book stays low-risk.
3. Return on Equity (ROE) remains in the mid-teens.

Those targets push EQ Bank to keep rates high, products few, and risks low. Good for funding; weak for building a brand people remember. To own a noun, customers remember, EQ Bank must accept short-term pain; the parent balance sheet would normally avoid it.

Four-Level Positioning Canvas — revised for 2024

Why NOW?

Within the next 24 months, three federal changes will reset customer expectations:

• Open-Banking Phase 1 (2026): secure APIs let any app pull balances and transactions once the customer agrees. (Imagine you could tell any new money app, “see all my bank account history,” and it would show up safely, no passwords shared.)
• Real-Time Rails (RTR, 2026): payments settle in seconds, killing float revenue and making “instant” the new normal. (Sending money will be like sending a text, there in seconds, no waiting for “pending” messages.)
• Bill C-27 (Digital Charter): Banks must explain how their algorithms make decisions, no more black boxes.

First brand to attach openness to an actual wallet wins the dashboard slot; laggards become pipes.

The sacrifice EQ Bank must fund

1. Permanent Fee Amnesty
   Eliminate teaser-rate cliffs, dormancy fees, and hidden FX spreads. Likely cost: 10–15 basis-point hit to net interest margin.
2. Open Data Dividend
   Pay customers 5–10 bp on balances when they share transaction data via open-banking APIs. Cost: foregone margin but locks loyalty and drives daily log-ins.
3. Radical Transparency Ledger
   Publish a quarterly, plain-language report that shows how high rates are funded and where deposits are lent. Cost: cultural discomfort and competitive visibility; monetary cost is trivial.

Together, these moves turn a service promise into a structural moat. Competitors could copy one piece, but matching the full trio would require them to torch meaningful revenue lines.

Execution checklist for the ELT

A staged plan turns “Openness” from slideware into operations:

Q3 2024 – Approve sacrifice
Finalise fee-amnesty policy and update analyst guidance on the margin hit.

Q1 2025 – Ship the beta
Launch open-banking APIs and the data-dividend pilot with 5 000 power users; track churn, log-ins, and referral lift.

Pre-RTR 2026 – Market the ledger, not the rate
Release the first Radical Transparency Ledger; PR push focuses on “how” not “how much.”

Ongoing – Noun filter
Add a standing agenda item to every roadmap review: “Does this widen or clutter Openness?” Any feature that adds friction dies on the spot.

Each step aligns capital, tech, and messaging around one proof: customers can see, move, and benefit from their data faster than anywhere else.

So what?

If EQ Bank embraces Openness now, it positions itself as the default wallet for every segment most likely to switch: newcomers, gig-earners, and yield hunters, once open-banking APIs and Real-Time Rails drop friction to zero. In that world, the brand that already lets customers see, move, and monetize their data in seconds wins the first daily interaction. First touch drives share of deposits, captures transactional insights, and sets the agenda for the next product sale, whether that is a mortgage, tax solution, or small-business loan.

Refuse the short-term pain, a permanent fee amnesty, a data dividend, and a public transparency ledger, and two outcomes follow. First, a larger rival will pay the sacrifice cost, frame “openness” on its terms, and lock EQ Bank into reactive marketing spend and thin-margin promo rates. Second, EQ Bank remains what it is today: an efficient funding arm for Equitable Bank, but never the relationship owner that shapes lifetime customer value. A few lost basis points now buy a mental monopoly in 2030; saving them keeps the balance sheet tidy and hands the future of customer loyalty to someone else.

I’ll leave you with this.

EQ Bank grew fast by offering high rates and no fees. That trick is now standard. To stay special, the bank needs one clear idea people can trust: Openness.

• What Openness means: no hidden fees, your data moves where you want, and the bank shows how it makes money.
• Why act now: new rules coming in 2026 will let customers switch banks with a tap. The first bank that feels truly open will win their daily business.
• What to do: scrap teaser fees for good, pay a small bonus when people share their data, and publish a simple report explaining how everything works.
• Timeline: decide on the fee cut this year, launch the data bonus next year, and share the first “how we make money” report before the new payment system goes live.

Spend a little margin today, own the customer tomorrow. Wait, and you’ll spend much more trying to catch up.