Wealthsimple unveiled an AI assistant called Penny, along with 11 other new products and features spanning consumer finance, business payments, and self-directed trading, at a launch event in Toronto on Thursday.
The company said the upcoming rollout of Penny is designed to help clients carry out money and investment tasks, including e-Transfers, wires, spending analysis, invoice payments and share dealing within the Wealthsimple platform. Client approval will be required before any money is moved or any trade is placed, the statement clarified.
Clients will also be able to link their accounts to external AI tools, including ChatGPT and Claude, with controls over access levels and added approval checks for important actions. That connection is expected in early 2027.
Payments push
Beyond AI, Wealthsimple used the launch to expand its payments offering. Wealthsimple Pay now allows instant transfers of up to CAD $100,000 between the platform's clients, well above the limits commonly associated with Interac e-Transfers, which usually sit in the single-digit thousands. Users who rely on passkeys will also be guaranteed reimbursement for unauthorised transactions.
A temporary virtual card product is also due before year-end. Available to holders of Wealthsimple prepaid and credit cards, it will let users generate up to five cards at once, each with separate details, expiry settings and spending limits.
Wealthsimple is also pushing further into business finance with a business credit card. It will offer no foreign exchange fees and one per cent cashback on purchases, and any business will be able to apply when it becomes available in early 2027.
Investment range
Wealthsimple also outlined plans to offer CADD, a Canadian-dollar-backed stablecoin issued by a regulated financial institution. The token will track the Canadian dollar and be redeemable one-for-one into Canadian currency, while holdings on the platform will earn an annual reward of 3.25 per cent.
The company is a core launch partner of Tetra Digital Group's CADD, along with other backers ATB Financial, National Bank of Canada and Shopify.
In portfolio management, the group is expanding direct indexing so clients can set it up in an existing account or convert an ETF holding through the app. In non-registered accounts, Wealthsimple said automated tax-loss harvesting through direct indexing can lift after-tax returns by as much as 0.5 per cent a year.
Trading tools
Several of the releases target active traders, an area where Wealthsimple says it has been gaining ground. Citing Investor Economics, it said it recorded the highest number of self-directed trades in Canada in the first half of 2026.
A new trading platform, Wealthsimple Pro, is due by year-end. It will bring together positions, watchlists and Level 2 market data in one interface aimed at more frequent traders.
Trade execution is set to be up to six times faster, according to Wealthsimple. On mobile, the process of placing a trade has been cut from eight steps to two, while the time taken has fallen from 21 seconds to four.
Another addition is commission-free options trading on Canadian stocks, which Wealthsimple described as its most requested trading feature. It follows the company's earlier move into zero-commission U.S. equity options.
For more speculative traders, Wealthsimple plans to introduce perpetual futures tied to cryptoassets, metals and indices. The contracts let clients trade price moves using leverage without owning the underlying asset, and they do not expire.
App redesign
All of the new services are set to sit within a rebuilt mobile app for iOS and Android. Wealthsimple said the new app will launch five times faster and let customers customise the home screen around measures such as net worth, portfolio performance or spending activity.
For traders, the redesigned app will include pinned positions, swipe-based dealing and a trade mode that keeps pending orders visible. The wider app overhaul is due in early 2027.
The launch scale reflects Wealthsimple's growing reach in Canadian financial services. It serves more than 4 million Canadians and held about CAD $169 billion in assets under administration at the end of September.