Karen Budahazy

Worth knowing

Karen knows the issuing side of Canadian fintech from the inside: how cards get sponsored, how programs clear regulatory and CDIC questions, and who at a bank has to say yes. She now helps fintechs and banks build payments and embedded finance strategies that will still hold up in an open banking market.

Story

Karen built more than two decades in payments in her native Toronto, concentrating on prepaid long before it became the plumbing under Canadian neobanks. She was a founding member of Payments Exchange in 2011, and four years later a founding director of the industry body she would go on to lead. At Peoples Group she spent three years as VP of Digital Enablement and Issuing, the quiet counterparty for fintechs launching cards and accounts in Canada. She now advises independently and sits as a board advisor to Open Finance Network Canada, working on what open banking means for payments. She studied economics and French at York and works in both languages.

In Karen's words

I am born in Toronto and have been in the payments industry for over 25years. I currently advise Fintechs and Banks on setting up and future proofing their payments and embedded finance strategies.

Highlights

• Board Chair, Canadian Prepaid Providers Organization (2020); director since 2015
• VP, Digital Enablement & Issuing, Peoples Group (2020-2023)
• Founding member and advisory board member, Payments Exchange (2011-2014)
• Nominated, Women in Payments Thought Leader award (2022)
• MBA, International Business, Schulich School of Business, York University