The U.S. Department of the Treasury today released a report on the potential benefits and challenges associated with the increasing trend of financial sector firms adopting cloud services technology. 
Investment crowdfunding, or crowd-sourced funding (CSF) as it is called down under, generated $72 million in online capital formation, according to an industry report.
2022 was a challenging year for venture-back companies but there were many silver linings for investment crowdfunding. Last week, Crowdfund Capital Advisors released their 
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Research
Research: Which UK Bank Customers are Most at Risk of Fraud?
YourMoney | John Fitzsimons | Feb 7, 2023
Image: Unsplash/Dan Nelson
Banks are missing basic online and app protections, which are exposing users to a greater risk of fraud, a consumer watchdog has revealed.
- Consumer champion Which? and Red Maple Technologies, a security firm, tested the customer-facing security systems of 13 bank account providers at the end of last year. Banks were assessed based on the login, navigation and logout, account management and encryption, across both their online banking and apps.
- A whopping 29,102 cases of remote banking fraud reported to UK Finance in the first half of last year. The majority of Brits reported seeing an increase in scam attempts over the last six months of 2022 as well.
- The worst bank for customer security:
- Virgin Money was the worst performer, scoring just 52% for its online banking and 54% for its app banking. It scored two stars out of five for navigation and logout, as well as account management, for online banking, with the same score for the encryption on its app.
- The study found that the bank did not adequately block insecure passwords or remove phone numbers from notifications, while there were also no security checks should you want to pay someone new, change an email address or adapt the details of a payee.
- Virgin Money was the worst performer, scoring just 52% for its online banking and 54% for its app banking. It scored two stars out of five for navigation and logout, as well as account management, for online banking, with the same score for the encryption on its app.
See: Comparison of UK banking providers’ fraud controls
- Best bank for customer security:
- Starling came top for online banking security at 82%, while its app scored 80%. The bank scored the full five stars in almost every category in the Which? study.
- It was followed by HSBC, which was the top scorer for online banking security last year. It scored 80% for online banking, while its app was the best in the study with a score of 82%.
- Banks must raise their game: banking industry needs to do a better job in boosting its cyber defences against scammers, who it suggested are becoming increasingly sophisticated. It called for further measures like blocking weak passwords and removing sending sensitive data through SMS text messages since they can be intercepted.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Bank-Issued Deposit Tokens Emerge and JP Morgan Sees Them Going DeFi
Finextra | Feb 10, 2023
Blockchain-based deposit tokens, rather than stablecoins, could emerge as the foundation for stable digital money, according to a report from JP Morgan and Oliver Wyman.
- Alternative bank-issued deposit token could prove more successful than stablecoins often touted as the future of digital money
- Deposit tokens are transferable tokens issued on a blockchain by a licensed depository institution which evidence a deposit claim against the issuer.
- Because the tokens are commercial bank money embodied in a new technical form, they sit comfortably as part of the banking ecosystem, subject to the regulation and supervision applicable to commercial banks today.
- Number of technical advantages to payments and transaction settlement including programmability, 24/7 transferability, as well as faster and more direct fund flows between counterparties.
See: Vitalik: Designing Principles-based Stablecoins that (may not) collapse
Basak Toprak, global product head, digital tokens, Onyx by JP Morgan:
The digital money landscape is still emerging and various types of digital money will compete to serve different use-cases. We believe deposit tokens will become a widely used form of money within the digital asset ecosystem alongside central bank digital currencies.
Continue to the full article --> here
Download the 37 page PDF whitepaper --> here
Blockworks | Sebastian Sinclair | Feb 10, 2023
Bank-issued deposit tokens are much safer than stablecoins for major institutions looking to transfer value across chains, JPMorgan says.
- Enter “deposit tokens,” a separate concept from central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). These function similarly to traditional deposits held by licensed financial institutions such as commercial banks, except they exist and operate on-chain.
- Last November, JPMorgan traded tokenized Singaporean dollars for tokenized Japanese yen as part of Singapore’s Project Guardian, with help from DBS Bank and SBI Digital Asset. The banks used a permissioned smart contract protocol, a fork of Aave Arc, powered by Polygon for the on-chain trade.
- Deposit tokens would be supported by the issuer’s regulatory framework, capital and liquidity requirements, contingency funding access as well as “robust” consumer protection policies.
- From the perspective of the issuing bank, the tokens simply represent a reorganization of the bank’s deposit liabilities on its balance sheet, without altering the bank’s asset composition.
See: Is USDCs Blockrock Money Fund a Back door CBDC?
- Deposit tokens going DeFi: The rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols may also result in the creation of liquidity pools for deposit tokens, according to the report. These pools would be established by token holders who supply their deposits as liquidity on decentralized exchanges.
- If the pools persist and serve a practical purpose, such as fostering market-based fungibility between deposit tokens, then tokenization should not cause a pricing disparity commonly seen in today’s stablecoin liquidity pools, the bank said.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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U.S. Treasury Report: Benefits, Challenges Facing Cloud-Based Fintech Adoption
U.S. Treasury | Release | Feb 8, 2023
The U.S. Department of the Treasury today released a report on the potential benefits and challenges associated with the increasing trend of financial sector firms adopting cloud services technology.
- Overview: While cloud services can increase access and reliability for local communities as well as empower community banks to compete with financial technology firms, the report found that financial service firms ramping up their reliance on cloud-based technologies need more visibility, staff support, and cybersecurity incident response engagement from Cloud Service Providers (CSPs).
- Report Background: The first-of-its-kind report is the product of months of work in coordination with members of the Financial and Banking Information Infrastructure Committee (FBIIC) and was developed with extensive input from U.S. regulators, private sector stakeholders, trade associations, and think tanks. The report does not impose any requirements and does not endorse or discourage the use of any specific provider or cloud services.
See:
EmFi Fueled by Cloud-based Infrastructure | KPMG Fintech Pulse H1 2022
Cloud’s trillion-dollar prize is up for grabs
- In assessing the current state of cloud adoption in the financial sector, Treasury found that cloud services could help financial institutions become more resilient and secure, but that there were some significant challenges that could detract from these benefits. These include:
- Insufficient transparency to support due diligence and monitoring by financial institutions. Community banks expressed concerns that they do not often receive details of incidents or outages impacting their systems.
- Gaps in human capital and tools to securely deploy cloud services. The current talent pool needed to help financial firms tailor cloud services to better serve their customers and protect their information is well below demand.
- Exposure to potential operational incidents, including those originating at a CSP. Many financial institutions have expressed concern that a cyber vulnerability or incident at one CSP may potentially have a cascading impact across the broader financial sector.
- Potential impact of market concentration in cloud service offerings on the financial sector’s resilience. The current market is concentrated around a small number of CSPs, which means that if an incident occurs at one CSP, it could affect many financial sector clients concurrently.
- Dynamics in contract negotiations given market concentration. The limited number of CSPs may give CSPs outsized bargaining power when contracting with financial institutions.
- International landscape and regulatory fragmentation. The patchwork of global regulatory and supervisory approaches to cloud technology can make it nearly impossible for U.S. financial institutions to adopt cloud consistently at a global scale, reducing CSP use in the market and raising costs for cloud adoption strategies, which ultimately impacts consumers.
View the original press release --> here
Download the 71 page PDF report --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Formula for Building Fintech Companies with Resilient Valuations
BCV | Sarahinkfuss and Tina Dimitrova | Feb 7, 2023
We share this analysis with the hope that our findings can inform and encourage the many talented founders and management teams building fintech companies. Do not let the volatility of the past three years obscure the greater arc of the fintech story: we are in the early innings of transforming our financial world, the market opportunity is massive, and our conviction in the value creation in this space has never been stronger
- The single attribute correlated with the highest valuation multiple is also the most persistent attribute:
- Companies in the wealth / asset management space.
- B2B SaaS and payments companies also have strong valuations combined with resilience.
- The median multiple for payments companies is lower than we expected but as you dig into the payments universe you see that it’s dragged down by the high proportion of nextgen fintechs that are payments companies and saw a greater drop in multiples in the past year.
- Banking/Lending, Proptech, and Insurance companies all have consistently below average multiple valuations.
- Differentiators: We see much of the separation in the relative performance of spaces come from the degree of recurrence of the business model, presence of a balance sheet, and differences in financial characteristics of the particular underlying companies (which may not necessarily persist with the companies of the next generation in these markets).
See: How Divestiture Can Create Corporate Value
- B2B companies consistently achieve higher valuation multiples than B2C companies.
- Further, B2B companies are more resilient: while B2C companies in 2022 were valued at 28% of their valuation multiple in 2021, B2B companies in 2022 retained 48% of their 2021 valuation, on average.
- there’s variation among B2B companies based on the end-market served: companies serving the mid-market have always outperformed enterprise and SMB, but SMB and enterprise switched in relative value over the past year. SMB was more highly valued in 2021, but then fell more in 2022, vs enterprise which is now more highly valued than SMB.
- We see that public markets do not know how to value hyper growth companies. Upon going public, Fintech company valuations are optimized when companies grow between 20% and 60%.
- The faster growing a company is, the more it can burn, but only up to a certain level. Combining the findings on the optimal revenue growth rate and Rule of 40 metric, there’s a clear tradeoff between revenue growth and EBITDA margin. How high, or low, can you go?
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Australian Equity Crowdfunding Markets Raised $72 Million in 2022
Crowdfund Insider | JD Alois | Jan 30, 2023
Investment crowdfunding, or crowd-sourced funding (CSF) as it is called down under, generated $72 million in online capital formation, according to an industry report.
- The information is compiled by Birchal, the largest online investment platform in Australia. Birchals has been providing this report for several years now.
- While a smaller market, Australia continues to grow. In aggregate, since 2018, issuers have raised $219 million for approximately 250 SMEs.
- Average deal size – $733,000
- Average individual investment – $1695
- 70 securities offerings were over $1 million
- Total market estimated market cap of firms completing a securities offering at $1.4 billion
- There have been 50 follow-on securities offerings
- The largest securities offering to date was for ZeroCo for $5 million (October 2021)
See: CCA 2022 Investment Crowdfunding Report: 7 Charts Highlight Growth and Impact
- The fastest funding round was for Your Mates Brewing in October 2022 at under two hours
- Birchal reports the bulk of online capital formation for early-stage ventures at 192 offerings raising $144 million
- In 2022, most issuers were “growth stage” (49%) with greater than $1 million in reported revenue. Pre-revenue startups accounted for 16.5% of the funding activity.The number of pre-revenue firms raising capital declined from 2021, while revenue-generating firms raising capital increased dramatically.
- Industry sectors that have been the most popular issuers include:
- Food and Beverage at 39%
- Financial Services at 12%
- Sustainability at 11%
In 2022, most issuers were “growth stage” (49%) with greater than $1 million in reported revenue. Pre-revenue startups accounted for 16.5% of the funding activity. The number of pre-revenue firms raising capital declined from 2021, while revenue-generating firms raising capital increased dramatically.
Continue to the full article --> here
Download the 24 page PDF report --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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CCA 2022 Investment Crowdfunding Report: 7 Charts Highlight Growth and Impact
Crowdfund Capital Advisors | Sherwood Neiss | Feb 8, 2023
2022 was a challenging year for venture-back companies but there were many silver linings for investment crowdfunding. Last week, Crowdfund Capital Advisors released their 7th annual Year in Review report. 105-page report (our longest yet) contains 100 charts, tables, images, and maps.
- Pitchbook Angel/Seed deals are trending down while alternative investment crowdfunding deals hit a record high:
- Pitchbook released the “Q4 Venture Monitor First Look” that breaks down its data. This trendline continues to show an increase in funded deals. As more issuers find it challenging to access capital in 2023, we expect to see them turn online for capital.
- Investment crowdfunding has bridged the the 'Valley of Death'
- The average raise since the industry launched has grown to $365K, expanding beyond where the Valley existed previously; $25K to $250K.
- With the maximum issuers can raise now at $5 million, there is much room for successful issuers to perform follow-on raises to not only get them through the Valley of Death but beyond it.
- Equity crowdfunding issuers are becoming less risky; the profile of the average successful investment crowdfunding issuer is changing
- Demographic: They tend to be older, are post-revenue, and have average revenues over $1 million.
- Investors see the logic. The more established issuers raised more money and had more investors than their startup counterparts.
- As larger, more established issuers come online, this will further derisk investment in this space.
See: Reg CF Update: Interview with Sherwood Neiss on Investment Crowdfunding
- Truly has democratized access to capital
- It used to be that if you wanted to access Venture capital, you needed to reside in or near Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston. However, thanks to Investment Crowdfunding, we see that it has successfully been able to democratize access to capital across the country.
- More importantly, the data shows that women and minority entrepreneurs (that routinely struggle to access capital) have had greater success within Investment Crowdfunding and are raising up to 50% of the capital.
- Investment Crowdfunding is a growing and important economic driver for the economy:
- Issuers successful with Investment Crowdfunding are scaling startups and small businesses. They create products and services. Pay business, sales, and payroll taxes. And are massive consumers of local and regional products and services. Investment Crowdfunding issuers are responsible for pumping more than $4 billion into our economy since the industry launched in 2016. All of this capital is going into over 1,600 communities across the USA. This is a local economic stimulus unlike we’ve ever seen. If our government officials are looking for ways to promote economic development, they should focus their attention on Investment Crowdfunding issuers.
See:
JOBS Act of 2012: Ten Years of Legalized Investment Crowdfunding
Fintech Fridays EP57: 10 Years of Investment Crowdfunding: Past, Present & Future Since the JOBS Act
- Since Investment Crowdfunding began, Issuers successful with Investment Crowdfunding are responsible for supporting over 226,000 jobs:
- We believe this is an underestimate because it doesn’t take into account issuers that reported no full-time employees but either have grown to support them or outsource jobs altogether.
- Either way, we went to Washington, DC, and promised jobs. And one can see the industry is delivering on it! Whoever came up with the acronym “The JOBS Act” deserves an award!
- Generate wealth and opportunities for the average investor
- Investment Crowdfunding allowed the average American to play the role of mini-VC and invest in pre-IPO startups that they believe in for the first time in history. A small percentage of these will most likely go on to phenomenal exits.
- Over $54B of value is currently sitting inside successful Investment Crowdfunding issuers. Only $1.6 billion has been invested to date by Investment Crowdfunding investors.
Continue to the full article --> here
Purchase the full 2022 Investment Crowdfunding report --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Crypto Funding Plunges 91% in January (compared to last year)
CoinDesk | Brandy Betz | Feb 2, 2023
Image: CoinDesk, January 2022 vs 2023
Analysis shows crypto startups only raised $548 million last month (January 2023) plunging 91% year over year.
- Venture capital (VC) and other investments in privately held crypto startups amounted to $548 million last month, a huge drop from $6 billion in January 2022, according to data compiled by CoinDesk.
- The number of transactions shrank to 62 from 166, and most of the 2023 deals were for smaller, early-stage companies.
See: FT Partners Jan 2023 Blockchain and Crypto Market Update Report
- Funding rounds can take months to finalize or close, and some of the investments reflected last month were likely already raising money when the FTX collapse started in early November. The coming months will show exactly how much investment capital dried up after the FTX scandal came to light.
- FTX’s demise created doubts about the whole centralized exchange (CeFi) model of trading crypto, and persuaded some that decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) are the better way forward.
- CeFi deals sinking 99% to $22.8 million in January 2023. Also, the CeFi firms that managed to raise money had a tie to DeFi.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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