The Globe and Mail | David Berman | March 31, 2016

Toronto-Dominion Bank’s chief executive officer identified tech-savvy upstarts as a key challenge for the lender, but asked policy makers to consider new rules to level the playing field with established banks.

“Thousands of fintechs are vying for bank customers,” Bharat Masrani said at the bank’s annual general meeting in Montreal on Thursday. While competition is a good thing, he argued that new financial technology players – some of which lend money to small businesses through online services – are often not subject to the same regulatory rules as traditional banks, suggesting an unfair advantage and the potential for security lapses. “That’s why I believe it would be appropriate for policy makers to consider a regulatory environment that ensures the safety of customer information and the integrity of our financial system,” Mr. Masrani said, adding that security breaches and service interruptions have plagued a number of fintechs.

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In a conference call with reporters following the annual meeting, Mr. Masrani was reluctant to provide specifics on what policy changes he would like to see or examples of security breaches.

However, some of the most notable breaches in recent years have involved major firms with big budgets to defend themselves against attacks. In 2014, a cyberattack against JPMorgan Chase & Co. compromised accounts for 83 million households and small businesses. Recent attacks have also targeted Home Depot Inc., Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and Target Corp.

TD itself was the target of a denial-of-service attack in 2013, when a flood of online traffic knocked out access to the bank’s website and mobile banking services.

Despite highlighting fintech as a competitive threat that enjoys unfair advantages over traditional banking, Mr. Masrani made it clear that TD was hardly struggling.

He said the bank would engage with some fintech firms as potential collaborators, and sees the rise of new ideas and technology as a huge benefit to consumers.

“We engage with a wide range of firms who can support our mission to seamlessly fulfill the wants and needs of each and every customer,” he said.

Nonetheless, his point about rising competition and a potentially disruptive threat to traditional banking has been supported by many observers.

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