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Running a money services business, payment company or crypto business in Canada means living inside a web of regulatory requirements — and your bank, payment partners and counterparties expect you to have proper legal footing.
Renno & Co is a Canadian law firm whose fintech practice helps MSBs, payment service providers (PSPs), remittance businesses and crypto companies navigate those requirements: we prepare legal opinions, draft and negotiate agreements, and provide ongoing legal and regulatory advice. Our Canadian MSB lawyers work alongside experienced AML compliance specialists, so the advice you get is informed by the practical realities of FINTRAC, the Bank of Canada and Canadian banking partners — not just the black-letter law.
We're not a generic corporate firm or an offshore registration shop. Our fintech practice focuses on MSBs, PSPs, payment companies and crypto businesses, so you get lawyers who already understand your model, your regulators and your counterparties.
Our in-house compliance team runs AML programs day to day — FINTRAC reporting, bank and account-provider questionnaires, KYC and audits. Your lawyers draw on what our compliance team sees firsthand, so your legal opinion or contract reflects what regulators and banks actually ask for and accept in practice, not just what the statute says.
We've seen what financial institutions and payment partners raise during onboarding and due diligence. We write opinions and documents with those practical concerns in mind, so your paperwork answers the questions your counterparties will actually ask.
We're physically in Canada and governed by Canadian law societies (Ontario and Québec), so your advice comes from lawyers who work within the Canadian rules every day.
We believe legal advice should work in practice, not just on paper. Many of the clients we work with came to us after a traditional firm — not because the advice was wrong, but because it didn't fit the way their business actually operates. They were looking for something practical, commercially minded and easy to act on. That's the alternative we set out to build.
Once clients find us, it's rare that they leave. We know what it's like to be in your shoes, so we focus on practical, actionable advice that helps you accomplish your business objectives.
Fintech, payment, crypto and other financial-services businesses advised
MSB registrations completed
Jurisdictions served, including clients from Canada, Cyprus, the UK, Brazil, India and the US
We prepare regulatory legal opinions for Canadian MSBs, PSPs and crypto businesses, including opinions requested by banks and account providers during onboarding.
Our lawyers assess your business model, applicable licensing and registration requirements, and relevant Canadian regulatory obligations.
We prepare and review terms of service, customer agreements, privacy policies and other commercial documentation so your customer-facing paperwork matches the services you actually offer.
We review, draft and negotiate agreements with banking partners, payment processors, technology vendors and other commercial counterparties — so you understand what you're signing and where the risk sits.
We advise on FINTRAC requirements, RPAA applicability, changes to your business model, new products and other relevant regulatory obligations as they come up.
We assist with changes to corporate names, addresses, directors and other corporate information, including associated filings where appropriate.
We help fintech clients with notarizations, certifications and document authentication requirements that are often requested by banks and other account providers.
Yes. Preparing independent legal opinions for banks, banking-as-a-service providers and payment partners is one of the most common things we do. Depending on the request from your bank/account provider, we can review your actual business model, payment flows, contracts and registrations, then set out our analysis in a written opinion tailored to what your counterparty has asked for. Depending on the mandate, this may include regulatory classification, whether your existing registrations are sufficient, and specific cross-border aspects of your services. We'll confirm the scope with you before we start, and we won't promise an outcome a legal opinion can't deliver — such as guaranteeing account approval.
Yes. We advise payment and crypto businesses on whether their activities require FINTRAC MSB registration, Bank of Canada PSP registration under the RPAA, or additional regulatory approvals. The answer depends on your actual business model, payment flows and contractual relationships—not simply how you describe your services. For background, read our MSB vs. RPAA in Canada guide and the Who Needs to Register as an MSB With FINTRAC? section of our registration guide. If you need an assessment specific to your business—including a formal opinion for a bank or payment partner—our lawyers can review the facts and advise.
Yes. We draft, review and negotiate agreements with banking partners, payment processors, technology vendors and other counterparties. We focus on the terms that matter commercially — liability, termination, pricing, data and compliance obligations — and flag where it's realistically worth pushing back versus where the market terms are what they are. The goal is practical, commercially minded advice you can act on — not a theoretical markup that ignores how your business actually runs and what you actually care about.
No. You can engage us for a single legal deliverable — a legal opinion, a contract, or a one-off piece of advice — without signing up for ongoing compliance support. Many clients do both, but our legal services are available on their own.
Yes. Even if we didn't handle your original registration, we can act as ongoing legal counsel for an existing Canadian MSB — advising on FINTRAC and RPAA developments, new products, changes to your business model, contracts and corporate matters as they arise. We can also connect this with your bank onboarding and AML needs where relevant.
Speak with our fintech legal team about your business, the deliverable you need, and how we can help — whether that's a legal opinion, a contract, or ongoing advice.
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