Canadian Banks Restrict Employee Prediction Market Bets
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- RBC bars employees subject to its personal trading policies from placing bets on prediction markets, following the arrival of platforms like Kalshi in Canada.
- Scotiabank's personal trading policy prohibits employees from speculating on financial markets, indexes, or companies through prediction-market platforms.
- National Bank imposed a prediction-market personal trading restriction on its capital markets division employees, while TD Bank issued a reminder earlier this year reinforcing how confidentiality requirements cover prediction-market activity.
- Manulife added a dedicated "Guidance Related to Prediction Market Activity" section to its code of business conduct, prohibiting bets on outcomes an employee knows through their relationship with the insurer.
- CIRO has authorized only two members — Wealthsimple (partnered with Kalshi to launch Wealthsimple Predict) and Interactive Brokers — to offer Canadians event contracts, and only in three categories: economic forecasts, environment forecasts, and financial indicators.
- Patrick Augustin, Canada Research Chair in Macrofinance and Derivatives at McGill's Desautels Faculty, praised the moves as proactive, noting financial intermediaries "channel financial flows" and face heightened risk of confidentiality violations.
- The Canadian clampdown mirrors Wall Street bank and hedge fund conduct-code updates after U.S. cases including a Google software engineer and a U.S. Army soldier were accused of profiting from confidential information via prediction markets.
Why it matters: Five of Canada's largest financial institutions moved within months of domestic prediction-market launches to extend personal trading policies to event-contract betting, closing a potential insider-trading loophole for staff with access to material non-public information. McGill professor Patrick Augustin framed the moves as proactive risk management for firms that "channel financial flows" — a direct response to U.S. cases like the accused Google engineer and Army soldier that exposed how event contracts can monetize confidential corporate data.
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