“Can Canada's oldest bank become the embedded financial infrastructure layer for North American commercial and mid-market businesses — owning payments, treasury, and workplace savings APIs alongside its traditional balance sheet?”
Founded in 1817, BMO is Canada's oldest bank and operates as a full-service financial institution across Canada and the United States. The bank has increasingly invested in embedded finance infrastructure, launching a developer portal with open APIs for payments and account reporting and forging partnerships (Extend, Mastercard) to bring virtual card capabilities to commercial clients. The 2022-2023 acquisition and integration of Bank of the West dramatically expanded BMO's US retail and commercial footprint, positioning it more competitively against US money-center banks. More recently, BMO has doubled down on workplace savings (BMO-LINK platform) and digital B2B payment automation as strategic growth areas.