The Invisible Engine: How Fintech is Shaping Canadian Health Access

TORONTO, ON – November 25, 2025 – A recent press release announced that i2c Inc., a global financial technology firm, was named an “Established Leader” in a new report by Juniper Research. The report analyzes the rapidly growing market for “modern card issuing platforms”—a technical-sounding category that Juniper forecasts will swell from $1.8 billion in 2025 to over $4.2 billion by 2030. On the surface, this is niche industry news, a story about the plumbing of the digital economy. But beneath the jargon lies a powerful technological shift that is already reshaping how we shop, travel, and manage our finances. More importantly, this invisible engine is poised to have a profound impact on one of our most critical social sectors: healthcare.

The innovations happening in the back-end of banking are about to move from the checkout counter to the check-up room, presenting both unprecedented opportunities and new challenges for fostering wellness and ensuring equitable access to care for all Canadians.

The Engine of Digital Commerce

To understand the potential impact on health, we first have to understand the technology itself. For decades, issuing a payment card—be it credit, debit, or prepaid—was the exclusive domain of large banks using rigid, legacy systems. A “modern card issuing platform,” like the one offered by i2c and its competitors like Marqeta, Stripe, and Adyen, changes the game entirely.

These platforms are built on a single, flexible, cloud-native stack. They use APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to allow almost any company to create and control its own highly customized payment programs. This is the technology that powers the seamless financial experiences that are becoming commonplace:

• Embedded Finance: When you pay for an Uber ride without pulling out a card, that’s embedded finance. The payment is integrated directly into a non-financial app. Modern issuing platforms provide the infrastructure for retailers, tech companies, and service providers to issue their own branded cards and manage payments.
• Virtual Cards: The demand for instantly-issued, secure digital cards is exploding, with the global market projected to surpass $14 trillion by 2030. These platforms can generate a virtual card in seconds, provision it to a digital wallet, and even create single-use cards for secure online purchases.
• Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL): The explosive growth of services offering interest-free installment payments at checkout is enabled by this flexible financial infrastructure.

This shift is why the market is a multi-billion dollar battleground. Financial institutions and fintechs are in a fierce race to become the primary card in a consumer’s wallet, and a joint study by PYMNTS and i2c found that consumers carry nearly 40% higher balances on their primary card. The key to winning that top spot is differentiation through personalized, data-driven, and seamless digital experiences—exactly what modern platforms are designed to deliver.

“Our distinguished placement by Juniper Research as an Established Leader in modern card issuing reflects the strength of our platform and our continued investment in helping issuers deliver personalized, intelligent card programs at scale,” said Amir Wain, Founder and CEO of i2c, in a recent statement.

From Checkout to Check-up: The Healthcare Connection

While this technology was perfected in the world of commerce, its application in healthcare is where its community impact truly comes into focus. The same tools that allow a retailer to offer a branded credit card can be used to create sophisticated, user-friendly solutions to long-standing challenges in health access and equity.

Consider corporate health benefits. Many Canadians have Health Spending Accounts (HSAs) or wellness stipends, but using them can be a cumbersome process of paying out-of-pocket and submitting receipts for reimbursement. A modern issuing platform can power a dedicated benefit card, either physical or virtual, that is restricted to approved merchants and services. An employer could issue a card that works for prescriptions at any pharmacy, sessions with a registered psychotherapist, and physiotherapy appointments, but is automatically declined for non-eligible purchases. This simplifies the process for employees and provides better oversight for employers, encouraging the use of preventative health benefits.

Perhaps more profoundly, this technology offers a new model for delivering public benefits. i2c's platform already processes over $70 billion annually in prepaid transactions, including for government benefit programs. In Canada, this could transform how provincial and federal support is distributed. Instead of waiting for cheques, recipients of disability support, social assistance, or targeted health programs—like the new Canadian Dental Care Plan—could receive funds instantly on a reloadable card linked to a mobile app. This provides faster access to essential funds, enhances security, and offers a greater sense of dignity and control for the recipient.

Furthermore, the rise of BNPL is already spilling over into healthcare. Faced with high upfront costs for dental work, elective procedures, or medical equipment not fully covered by provincial plans, many Canadians are turning to installment payment options. These fintech-powered financing tools, integrated directly into a provider's billing system, can make necessary care more accessible by breaking down significant cost barriers.

Fostering Wellness, One Transaction at a Time

Beyond just paying for care, this infrastructure can be used to proactively foster wellness. As companies expand their focus on employee well-being, dedicated wellness cards are becoming more popular. These cards, funded by the employer, can be configured to cover gym memberships, fitness classes, meditation apps, and even healthy meal services. By making it frictionless to pay for wellness activities, organizations can drive meaningful engagement in preventative health.

Public health agencies could adopt a similar model. Imagine a program that incentivizes healthy behaviours by rewarding participants with funds on a restricted-spend card. Completing a cancer screening, attending a diabetes management workshop, or hitting a certain number of steps tracked by a wearable could trigger a small monetary reward usable for purchasing healthy groceries or sporting goods. This turns the payment system into a tool for positive reinforcement, directly aligning financial incentives with public health goals.

“Our latest research shows the market is entering a new phase of maturity, with vendors increasingly differentiated by platform flexibility, depth of capabilities, and their ability to support more advanced use cases such as virtual cards, tokenization and embedded finance,” noted Jawad Jahan, Research Analyst at Juniper Research. It is precisely this flexibility that unlocks these innovative health and wellness applications.

The Canadian Reality and the Path Forward

This is not a theoretical future; the technology is already taking root in Canada. i2c, for example, recently expanded its partnership with Payfare to support its Canadian operations providing instant payouts to gig workers. It also has a key partnership with Finastra, a major technology provider for hundreds of community-based banks and credit unions across North America, including in Canada. These moves, along with the strong Canadian presence of competitors like Stripe and Adyen, signal that this powerful financial infrastructure is becoming woven into our economic fabric.

As this invisible engine hums with greater and greater force, it compels us to ask critical questions. How can Canadian policymakers, healthcare leaders, and community organizations strategically harness this technology to close health equity gaps? As we integrate financial data with health-related spending, what new privacy frameworks are needed to protect individuals? And how do we ensure that new financing tools like BNPL for healthcare serve as a bridge to access, rather than a potential trap of debt for the vulnerable?

The race to build the future of payments is well underway. The challenge now is to ensure that as this powerful infrastructure is built out, we are intentionally directing its capabilities toward building a healthier and more equitable future for all Canadians.