Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Cyber Security, Quantum, Hacks, Fraud Alerts, Risks, InsurTech
Open letter to the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister responsible for Statistics Canada
March 5, 2026 | NCFA Advocacy | Data Governance
Sent by email:
Dear Minister
Power of Data
We (the undersigned – data driven tech and policy experts) very much support the letter of 4 Feb 2026 to you from CCPA – https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/open-letter-to-the-honourable-melanie-joly-minister-responsible-for-statistics-canada/.
We add to that letter the following points:
1. At a time when we need more data, not less, to support evidence-based decision making and community engagement in Canada, the staffing and other cuts already started at StatsCan are misguided. Even if the cuts will “have a ‘low’ or ‘limited’ impact on existing service levels” (a position which is contestable), we echo concerns about the long-term impact on data collection, statistical reliability, and public trust in government institutions.
We ask StatsCan to outline how core programs, release schedules, and quality standards will be maintained. How do we reconcile the cuts with the Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy - https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ised/en/programs-and-initiatives/digital-research-infrastructure? Clarifying how “modernization” will offset reductions would strengthen confidence in the transition.
2. Our need for data is magnified by the attacks on data collection in the US, keeping in mind that in the past we have relied on much of that data. The attacks show how quickly statistical capacity can erode and how difficult it is to rebuild.
3. StatsCan plays an important coordinating role in maintaining statistical standards. Although StatsCan is not necessarily the body that should be collecting all the data we need in Canada, we suggest that StatsCan should be the body to oversee an inventory of what Canada does collect (or should be collecting) and to consult on and publish best practices for collection and governance. However, the cuts will clearly constrain an expanded governance role for StatsCan for the foreseeable future.
To provide some examples of data that is sorely needed:
(a) commercialization from Canadian universities, along the lines of the UKRI spinout registry (https://www.ukri.org/news/world-leading-register-of-uk-university-spin-outs-published); *
(b) data on emerging tech commercialization for defence (https://www.nato-pa.int/document/2024-dual-use-technologies-report-baldwin-051-esc and https://www.cigionline.org/publications/intellectual-property-is-economic-and-national-security/); and
(c) data on the outcomes of research spending.
4. Under the World Bank’s Statistical Performance Indicators, Canada’s statistical system ranks highly – https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/statistical-performance-indicators. While we do not doubt that reform of StatsCan is needed in an increasingly tech-driven economy, wholesale cuts are not the way to do it. Expertise will be lost, collaborative connections across organizations will be lost, mistakes will be made, there will be loss of morale, and direct costs of “redundancy” will be high, when strong statistical capacity is even more essential to support productivity and competitiveness.
5. The timing could not be worse. We are facing enormous challenges, and Canada’s need for reliable data is increasing as the economy evolves. To provide but one example, Canada is increasing defence spending under a new defence industrial strategy and engaging in “nation-building” projects. As noted in the Institute for Research in Public Policy report (https://irpp.org/research-studies/how-industrial-policy-can-strengthen-canada/), these projects must be “accompanied by rigorous evaluation and good governance practices” which can only be effective when Canadian institutions, including StatsCan, collect high quality data and use it to connect action to outcomes.
6. Rebuild or shred? (‘The Doom Loop’ and the future of the global order – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ULm87aidxM). This is a moment for careful planning to ensure institutional capacity is preserved and to plan for rebuilding, not shredding.
Respectfully
Signed
Kyle Briggs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-briggs/
David Durand – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daviddurandavocat/
Craig Asano, CEO National Crowdfunding & Fintech Assn of Canada - https://ncfacanada.org/
Robin Ford, Robin Ford Consulting - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinericaford/
Peter Morand, Past President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Patrick Leblond, CN-Paul M. Tellier Chair on Business and Public Policy, University of Ottawa
José Carlos Marques, Associate Professor, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa
* While Canada invests billions in research, we translate very little of the value created into long-term economic and social benefit for Canadians. StatsCan recently attempted to survey Canadian universities on their commercialization activities but was unsuccessful. StatsCan removed the report from the website following complaints that the data was incomplete.
In contrast, the UK recently created a “spin-out register” of all startups commercializing IP created during publicly funded research (https://www.ukri.org/blog/university-spin-out-register-a-step-change-in-insights-for-all/). This register is already providing valuable insights that are helping UK policy makers make better funding decisions.
Canada’s world-class research institutions could contribute far more to Canada’s economy and economic security (https://www.cigionline.org/publications/intellectual-property-is-economic-and-national-security/), but without high-quality data, we struggle to identify and fix the problems.
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, artificial intelligence, 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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LinkedIn Identity Checks Show The New Privacy Cost Of Trust
Mar 4, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Regtech And Identity And Privacy
Identity Verification Privacy And Consent Risk
On Feb 16 2026, an interesting post at The Local Stack conducted a recent LinkedIn identity verification analysis via a real user experience of a larger fintech issue: modern identity checks now collect far more than most people expect, and the privacy tradeoff is becoming harder to ignore as regulated onboarding expands across financial services, platforms, and digital marketplaces.
Persona’s identity verification policy shows the scale of that collection. The policy lists government ID images, selfies, biometric information, NFC chip data, device data, geolocation, usage data, and checks against third party data sources. It also states that uploaded ID images may be used to train or improve the service, and that information may be shared with service providers, data partners, affiliates, and government authorities in some circumstances.
Three Things Fintech Leaders (and Consumers) Need To Know
1. Identity verification now reaches well beyond document review. A current verification flow can combine document capture, face matching, biometric analysis, device signals, location data, and external database checks in one session. That means the onboarding event is no longer just a fraud control. It is a multi layer data collection workflow that carries legal, operational, and reputational risk.
2. The trust layer often sits with a specialist vendor, not the brand the user sees. A customer may think they are verifying with LinkedIn, a bank, or a fintech app. In practice, the verification is often run by a third party with its own privacy terms, data sources, subcontractors, retention rules, and model improvement rights. That gap between front end trust and back end processing is where privacy friction starts.
See: AI Governance Gaps Exposed By Legal Leaders
3. Privacy design now affects conversion. When users feel overexposed, abandonment risk rises. Firms that explain what's collected, why it's needed, who processes it, and how long it's kept are more likely to keep trust intact through onboarding. In identity verification, transparency is becoming part of product design.
Trust First Onboarding Design
Map every data field in the verification flow, not just the front end prompts. Disclose which vendor runs the check and what that vendor can do with the data. Remove optional collection that doesn't improve the actual risk decision. Review training, retention, and subcontractor clauses in vendor contracts. Put the plain language explanation before the scan starts, not after the user has already submitted a passport and selfie.
These steps become more important as Canada moves toward broader data portability and consumer directed finance. NCFA has already covered the wider privacy backdrop in North America privacy trends and the policy direction in CSA data portability consultation. Canada’s consumer-driven banking framework and the Consumer-Driven Banking Act push the market toward safer, permissioned data sharing. As that framework matures, identity credentials may become more reusable across providers, which could reduce repeated document collection while increasing pressure for stricter consent controls, narrower data use, and clearer liability when verification vendors sit in the middle.
Where This Is Heading
Identity verification is moving from a hidden compliance step to a visible trust product. More onboarding flows will combine biometrics, device intelligence, and third party data. More enterprise buyers will ask whether vendors can use customer data to improve models. More regulators will look at whether the scope of collection matches the actual risk being assessed. The firms that win will not be the ones that collect the most data. They will be the ones that collect the least data needed to deliver a defensible result.
Talking Point
When identity checks collect more than most users expect, do the firms with the clearest privacy design earn more trust than the firms with the most aggressive control stack?
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, artificial intelligence, 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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Vivox AI Raises £1.3M To Scale Compliance Agents
Mar 4, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Activity | Regtech And Financial Crime Compliance
AI image robot analyzing financial data in office
AI Agents Enter Financial Crime Operations
On March 4 2026, UK based Vivox AI raised £1.3 million to scale AI agents built for AML, KYB, and KYC workflows inside regulated financial institutions.
Vivox AI ties the raise to current deployment claims across enterprise customers operating in more than 100 countries, including the UK, Europe, the United States, and Singapore. The release says complex compliance case processing time falls from about six hours to about 30 minutes, false positive screening alerts fall by up to 86%, and straight through processing reaches up to 50% for selected onboarding and due diligence workflows.
AI Agents Move Into AML And KYC Workflows
AML, KYC, and KYB work is repetitive, document heavy, and costly. Time per case, alert volume, and exception handling drive staffing levels and backlog risk. The goal is to target those exact cost drivers. Less time per case reduces analyst hours. Lower false positive rates reduce review load. Higher clean through processing reduces manual touch rates.
See: Which Fintech Processes Are Most Ready for Agentic AI
The product is described as separate task agents rather than one general AI layer. That design fits regulated workflows more closely because onboarding, due diligence, screening, and case handling can be controlled, tested, monitored, and audited as separate processes. In practice, compliance teams need faster file handling, cleaner audit trails, and fewer manual reviews that do not add risk insight.
Canada recently updated its Canada anti fraud policy and continues to raise expectations on prevention, detection, and reporting. That pushes more pressure through AML, KYC, and KYB operations while boosting financial crime compliance innovation.
Vivox AI is entering a category where established Canadian and Canada connected firms already cover adjacent parts of the stack. Trulioo identity verification supports global KYC and KYB onboarding. iComply compliance automation covers modular AML, KYC, KYB, and KYT workflows. Nasdaq Verafin financial crime controls serves financial institutions with AML, fraud, and investigation tools. Vivox AI’s stated position is narrower and more execution focused: task specific agents inside case work, screening, and due diligence workflows.
For operators key metrics such as time saved per case, false positive rates, exception rates, audit evidence quality, and post approval error rates will determine whether automation lowers cost or adds a second layer of review.
Talking Point
If compliance automation cuts a six hour case to 30 minutes and reduces false positives by up to 86%, does workflow design replace compliance team size as the main scaling lever?
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, artificial intelligence, 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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AI Ethics, State Power, And The Fight Over RedLines
March 2 2026 | Feature | AI Governance And Public Safety
AI Image: Conceptual illustration of AI ethics, defense contracts, and public accountability
Anthropic’s Limits And OpenAI’s Defense Bet
On February 26 2026, Anthropic said it wouldn't allow two Pentagon use cases in its contracts: mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Two days later, OpenAI said it reached a Pentagon deal for classified AI deployments and argued its safeguards could still hold inside the agreement. The split exposes the real issue now facing AI vendors, governments, and regulated buyers. That is should ethics limits block deals or be enforced from inside it?
Anthropic's Ethical Redlines
Anthropic wasn't on the outside looking in. It said Claude was extensively deployed across the Department of War and other national security agencies and that the company had already put models into classified U.S. government networks. Anthropic also said two use cases, mass surveillance (including of the public), and fully autonomous weapons, we're never included in its contracts. Those cases are the fault lines in the dispute with Trump's Pentagon and US government.
Anthropic framed the issue as a narrow refusal, not a broad rejection of national security work. Dario Amodei said Anthropic supported “98% or 99%” of Pentagon use cases, but the company would not give up the remaining two limits. In its own words, Anthropic said, “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.” Reuters reported that stance put a defense contract worth up to $200 million at risk.
What Washington Did Next
The dispute escalated when President Trump directed the government to stop work with Anthropic and ordered a six month phase out of Anthropic technology across government. The Pentagon also moved to treat Anthropic as a supply chain risk. That raised the cost of holding hard limits when the customer is the government.
What OpenAI Signed
OpenAI took a different approach. In its own statement titled, 'Our agreement with the department of war', the company said its agreement had “more guardrails than any previous agreement for classified AI deployments, including Anthropic’s.” OpenAI also said, “We were—and remain—unwilling to remove key technical safeguards.” That is the core tension in this story.
Anthropic refused the terms it saw as too open. OpenAI signed and argued that stronger controls inside the agreement could still hold the line.
The details matter. OpenAI said the Department of War may use its system for all lawful purposes, but the same published terms say the system cannot independently direct autonomous weapons where law or policy requires human control, cannot make high stakes automated decisions that require human approval, and cannot be used for unconstrained monitoring of U.S. persons’ private information. OpenAI also said it keeps its safety stack in place, limits deployment to cloud infrastructure, keeps cleared personnel in the loop, and could terminate the contract if the government violates the terms.
See: Balancing AI Automation and Ethics in Fintech
The two companies are close on headline principles but not identical in practice. Anthropic draws two hard exclusions and refuses to move them. OpenAI accepts a broader legal framework, then relies on contract language, technical controls, and operational oversight to make similar limits enforceable inside the deal. That is a narrower and more conditional ethics model than refusing the agreement outright.
North of the border, the same trust question is already under pressure. After the Tumbler Ridge school shooting, Ottawa’s focus was whether AI evidence and escalation controls hold when governments ask for proof that safeguards, response rules, and accountability processes actually work under pressure. That's different than the Pentagon story that's testing how AI companies react and accept to full on defense contracts.
What This Means For Fintechs
For fintechs, banks, and infrastructure providers, the lesson is practical. Buyers in regulated markets now ask more than whether a model performs well. They ask who can audit it, who can override it, what records exist, how long they are kept, and whether a vendor can prove that a stated limit still holds when a regulator, a court, or a government agency pushes hard.
Read: From Guardrails to Judgment in Claude’s 2026 Constitution
On one hand, Anthropic's founders' moral compass highlights one method by maintaining hard limits even at the risk of losing a major federal contract. On the other hand, OpenAI's deal with the department of war is betting that contract terms, technical safeguards, and human oversight can preserve similar limits inside the agreement. Washington shows how quickly the state can force the issue. Ottawa shows what happens when public safety puts the same claims under direct scrutiny. In the next phase of AI adoption, trust rests less on capability claims and more on what a company can prove when the pressure rises.
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, artificial intelligence, 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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NCFA Weekly Fintech Intelligence Feb 21-27, 2026
February 27, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Whisperer Weekly Intelligence | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Regulation And Policy, Payments And Market Infrastructure, Risk Compliance And Regtech
Image: Freepik
This live weekly NCFA intelligence page tracks financial technology developments that significantly affect how fintechs build, sell, raise capital, and operate under scrutiny. Coverage prioritizes Canada and includes global events that directly influence competitive conditions, market access, and execution realities across fintech sectors. This page will be updated throughout the week with market movers in a live format and then each week we'll close the prior week's contents in prep for the upcoming week, and continue on a rolling basis. (Missed prior week's Fintech Whisperer? (December 6-12, 2025, December 13-19, 2025, January 1-9, 2026, January 10-16, 2026, January 17-23, 2026, January 24-30, 2026, January 31-February 6, 2026, February 7-13, 2026, February 14-20, 2026).
Weekly Fintech Market Intelligence Feb 21-27, 2026
Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization
NatGold Draws More Than US$469M In Pre-Market Token Demand
Feb 26, 2026, United States
- The pre-market token reservation program closes with 17,466 individuals across 162 countries reserving 133,518 tokens.
- Gross demand exceeds US$469M based on the company’s stated baseline intrinsic value.
- The company says it is entering the execution phase and plans to announce the tokenization event and trading portal later.
This is early proof that capital is willing to line up behind an asset backed token model before issuance begins. It matters for tokenization platforms, digital asset builders, and market operators because demand at this level raises the stakes on what comes next, especially issuance design, trading access, settlement flow, and how real world asset tokenization earns trust beyond crypto native buyers.
FCA Selects 4 Firms To Test Stablecoin Issuance In Sandbox
Feb 25, 2026, United Kingdom
- The FCA selects Monee Financial Technologies, ReStabilise, Revolut, and VVTX from 20 applications for its stablecoins cohort.
- Testing begins in Q1 2026 and focuses primarily on stablecoin issuance, with selected use cases spanning payments, wholesale settlement, and crypto trading.
- The FCA says findings will inform final UK stablecoin rules later in 2026 and states firms will need authorisation under the new regime when it goes live in October 2027, with an application gateway opening in September 2026.
This affects stablecoin issuers, wallet and exchange operators, payment firms that want stablecoin rails, and banks that can custody reserves or provide settlement accounts. The sandbox work turns authorisation readiness into near term execution, because counterparties will start asking who controls mint and burn, how reserves get safeguarded, how redemptions clear under stress, and what evidence you can produce before the September 2026 application gateway opens.
Crypto.com Secures Conditional OCC Approval For A National Trust Bank
Feb 23, 2026, United States
- Crypto.com receives conditional OCC approval to charter Foris Dax National Trust Bank, doing business as Crypto.com National Trust Bank.
- The company filed the application in October 2025 for the National Trust Bank to deliver custody, staking, and trade settlement as a federally regulated institution once fully approved.
- The company says the conditional approval does not change operations at Crypto.com Custody Trust Company, its New Hampshire regulated non-depository trust company.
Institutional buyers tend to route flow to whoever can prove segregation, controls, and settlement certainty under supervision, and this move aims straight at that bar.
Payments And Money Movement
UK Payments Authorities Publish A Forward Plan Across Retail, Wholesale, And Digital Assets
Feb 26, 2026, United Kingdom
- The Payments Forward Plan was Published by The Payments Vision Delivery Committee on February 26, 2026.
- The committee brings together HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the FCA, and the Payment Systems Regulator, and the plan covers upcoming initiatives across retail and wholesale payments, including elements of digital assets.
- The committee says it will add an enhanced focus on payments to the Regulatory Initiatives Grid in its first 2027 publication, giving firms a clearer view of what is coming and when.
This is important for payment firms, open banking providers, digital asset infrastructure teams, and banks building new rails in the UK. A single forward plan from all four authorities makes timing harder to ignore, because product roadmaps, compliance sequencing, and partner conversations now sit against a more visible policy calendar.
Peoples Group Teams With Fiserv To Build A Next Generation Payments Platform
Feb 25, 2026, Canada
- Peoples Group and Fiserv say the platform will be built to deliver instant payments, always on infrastructure, and ISO 20022 data through direct connections to Canada’s payment systems.
- The release ties the build to Payments Canada’s Real Time Rail deployment and says Peoples will use Fiserv technology to modernize its payments stack for clients and partners.
- Peoples Group calls the move one of the most substantial technology investments in its history and says the platform is designed to support financial institutions and fintechs across Canada.
This is a real infrastructure and distribution move in Canadian payments. It affects fintechs that bank through Peoples, embedded finance and sponsor bank partners, and any firm building around faster payments rails, because a stronger bank plus processor stack can tighten expectations on integration, uptime, message quality, and partner readiness well before RTR becomes fully operational.
Artificial Intelligence And Data
Block Rebuilds Around AI While Gross Profit And Guidance Rise
Feb 26, 2026, United States
- The workforce moves from over 10,000 to just under 6,000 (4,000 job cuts see NCFA write-up).
- 2025 Q4 gross profit reaches $2.87B, up 24%.
- 2026 gross profit guidance increases to $12.20B, up 18%.
- “The core thesis is simple. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company.”
- The company frames itself as becoming a smaller, faster, intelligence native company.
Is this a key domino in AI finance? This is what AI looks like when it evolves from product feature to company structure. Large fintechs, payments platforms, and their investors now have a clear example of stronger results arriving alongside much smaller teams, placing more weight on execution quality, operating discipline, and how management builds from here.
Financial Inclusion And Access
NextFin Asia Launches A Dedicated Fund For Catapult Inclusion SE Asia
Feb 23, 2026, Luxembourg and Singapore
- NextFin Asia launches as a dedicated fund that adds direct investment to the Catapult Inclusion SE Asia 3.0 program, shifting it from acceleration only to acceleration plus funding.
- The launch runs as a partnership between the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, and ADB Ventures at the Asian Development Bank.
- The release set two 2026 milestones, with a June 2026 phase in Luxembourg and a November 2026 presence at the Singapore FinTech Festival.
This is one of the cleaner bridges between public capital, development finance, and founder scale. If you build inclusion fintech in ASEAN, expect the bar to move toward impact proof and deployment readiness, because capital now sits inside the same program that opens doors.
Regulation And Policy
OSFI Opens A Targeted Fast Track Approvals Framework For New Entrants
Feb 26, 2026, Canada
- OSFI says the targeted fast track approvals framework will launch in June 2026 for eligible new entrants.
- The initial scope covers provincial credit unions seeking continuance as federal credit unions and applicants with technologically innovative or emerging banking models seeking to incorporate as a bank or as a federally regulated trust and loan company.
- The framework is intended to make the approvals path quicker, clearer, and more predictable through service standards, a risk based review approach, and a dashboard that tracks application progress.
- There are no changes to application fees and that the framework is meant to create efficiencies without shifting effort away from other applicants.
This is a significant turn of events for credit unions, fintechs, and crypto custody models that want a federal charter in Canada. A clearer approvals path can change when firms choose to enter the federal perimeter and how seriously investors and partners treat that option.
OCC Opens GENIUS Act Stablecoin Rulemaking For Payment Issuers
Feb 25, 2026, United States
- The OCC issues a notice of proposed rulemaking to implement the GENIUS Act for issuance of payment stablecoins and related activities under OCC jurisdiction.
- The proposed rule applies to national banks and federal savings associations and their subsidiaries, federal branches and their subsidiaries, foreign payment stablecoin issuers, nonbank entities approved as federal qualified payment stablecoin issuers, and state qualified payment stablecoin issuers where the OCC has regulatory or enforcement authority.
- It outlines standards and requirements in a new 12 CFR 15 covering activities, reserve assets, redemption, risk management, audits, reports, supervision, custody, applications and registrations, examination of foreign issuers, and a capital and operational backstop.
- It also revises capital, prompt corrective action, fees, and rules of practice and procedure as part of the proposed framework.
It affects stablecoin issuers, banks, custodians, exchanges, and fintechs that plan to distribute payment stablecoins, because reserve design, redemption handling, audits, supervision, and custody expectations start to look like core product requirements, not optional features.
FCA Proposes Mandatory Credit Reporting And CRA Designation
Feb 25, 2026, United Kingdom
- The FCA consults on CP26/7, implementing remedies from its credit information market study and sets a consultation deadline of 1 May 2026.
- Proposes mandatory reporting for firms in the credit and mortgage markets and a framework for how credit information gets shared and used, including Designated Consumer Credit Reference Agencies.
- Sets out intended scope that includes consumer credit and mortgage firms, credit reference agencies and credit information service providers, firms that share data with CRAs, and Gibraltar based consumer credit and mortgage lenders.
This affects lenders, CRAs, and fintechs that rely on bureau data for onboarding and underwriting. Teams should expect more pressure on data completeness, dispute handling, governance, and audit evidence because mandatory sharing can reset what a clean credit file must look like.
SEC Small Business Committee Reopens Finder Rules And Private Secondary Liquidity
Feb 24, 2026, United States
- The SEC’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee meets virtually Feb 24 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET and continues a deep dive on “finders,” including potential regulatory improvements that could permit certain finders to engage in additional capital raising activity.
- The committee agenda also moves into private secondary markets, including continuation funds, special purpose vehicles, and private tender offers, with speakers from PitchBook, Evercore, and Cooley.
- In prepared remarks, Chairman Paul S. Atkins links the secondary market discussion to liquidity pressure as more firms stay private and calls out the friction created by resale restrictions, issuer transfer restrictions, and state blue sky laws.
This meeting keeps the door open to a simpler capital raising layer below broker dealer economics. Platforms, issuers, and service providers that touch private raises and secondary liquidity should watch for recommendations that tighten who can get paid, how referrals get documented, and what disclosure standard can unlock broader resale paths.
SEC Extends Wells Response Window And Adds Meeting Right
Feb 24, 2026, United States
- SEC updates its enforcement manual and sets a four week baseline for Wells notice responses, up from the commonly used two week window.
- The update adds a right to a meeting with SEC officials within four weeks after a Wells response is submitted.
- The update also lays out a process for considering operational waivers while a firm negotiates a settlement.
This raises the value of process maturity. If your fintech faces enforcement exposure, the timeline gives more room to assemble evidence, but it also rewards teams that keep clean records and can explain decisions fast when scrutiny hits.
Capital Markets And Market Infrastructure
Bloomberg And Kaiko Bring Licensed Market Data On-Chain For Tokenized Treasuries
Feb 26, 2026, United States and France
- The initiative is designed to support access to Bloomberg Data License offerings on-chain through Kaiko’s infrastructure.
- The initial focus is tokenized U.S. Treasuries and repo workflows on the Canton Network.
- The companies position the build as a way to give counterparties a single, verifiable data source, reduce ambiguity, and lower reconciliation costs in tokenized workflows.
Important for tokenized markets because clean settlement depends on clean reference data. Teams building custody, collateral, repo, and tokenized securities infrastructure must soon meet a higher standard on pricing integrity, entitlement controls, and auditability as institutional workflows move on-chain.
OSFI Cuts Capital Charges For Domestic Infrastructure Debt
Feb 24, 2026, Canada
- OSFI lowers capital requirements for domestic infrastructure debt for federally regulated property and casualty insurers, effective immediately and “until further notice.”
- For unrated long term infrastructure debt, credit risk factors drop from 6% to 3% for terms of 1 year or less, from 8% to 4% for more than 1 year up to 5 years, and from 10% to 5% for more than 5 years.
- For unrated short term infrastructure debt, the factor drops from 6% to 3% for terms of 1 year or less, and OSFI directs how insurers reflect the treatment in quarterly PC4 returns.
This is an immediate capital incentive change. If you sell insurer investment, treasury, or regulatory reporting tooling, expect more pressure to classify eligible exposure fast and produce clean evidence for PC4 filings while the treatment stays live.
CIRO Tightens Guidance On Self Trading Risk And Market On Close Controls
Feb 23, 2026, Canada
- The guidance impacts CIRO regulated investment dealers and their Access Persons that enter orders on Canadian marketplaces under UMIR, including cases where orders could trade against each other for the benefit of the same person.
- CIRO treats this pattern as potentially manipulative and deceptive under UMIR 2.2, subject to limited exceptions and Market Surveillance involvement.
- CIRO also updates how dealers should use Market on Close facilities and states that an offsetting limit MOC order used to neutralize a market MOC order for the same person is a prohibited wash trade, while directing firms to contact Market Surveillance when an erroneous MOC order cannot be cancelled in its Market on Close guidance.
This raises the cost of weak pre-trade controls. Teams selling OMS, EMS, surveillance, or post trade tooling into dealers should expect more demand for guardrails that prevent self matching and catch close related mistakes early, plus audit ready evidence when exceptions still occur.
Conclusion
The market continues to tighten where new rails are forming, and where management teams are being forced to adapt faster. Stay nimble and ahead of the curve. Be cautious about waiting for late stage confirmations. NCFA offers various curated resources to help founders and investors stay current on developments that impact fintech markets, subscribe to NCFA weekly newsletter updates, view a rundown of current fintech news and insights, or dive into the latest fintech industry research.
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, artificial intelligence, 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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Kalshi Fines MrBeast Editor In Insider Trading Case
Feb 27, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Activity | Capital Markets And Market Structure
Two Cases and 200 Probes Test Exchange Controls
On February 25 2026, prediction market Kalshi disclosed two closed insider trading cases, including one tied to a YouTube editor linked to MrBeast content and one tied to a California political candidate. The same post records 200 investigations in the past year, with more than a dozen active cases.
The CFTC’s enforcement division confirmed the penalties, stating that illegal trading on prediction markets listed on designated contract markets falls within federal derivatives enforcement. Insider trading, misuse of non-public information, and market abuse now sit inside a framework that looks much closer to mainstream market oversight than novelty betting.
See: Coinbase Prediction Markets Face State Gaming Challenge
1. The MrBeast YouTube editor case carries a $20,397.58 financial penalty and a 2 year suspension from direct or indirect access to Kalshi.
The enforcement post describes trading tied to a popular creator’s videos. Kalshi’s surveillance tools flagged near perfect results in low odds markets, and user reports flagged the same account. The record concludes there was enough evidence to close the matter as an insider trading case and freeze the account.
2. The political candidate case carries a $2,246.36 financial penalty and a 5 year suspension
The second case covers a California political candidate who traded on his own election. The enforcement record treats that conduct as a direct rule breach. Public promotion of those trades made the violation even more visible.
What Platforms Need To Control
For operators, the takeaway is direct. Once a platform lists contracts tied to events, information control becomes core infrastructure. Monitoring, escalation, account freezes, documented penalties, and regulator coordination all move from compliance overhead to essential operating systems.
See: Stablecoins Power Prediction Market Settlement
For investors, the numbers point to the real test. Volume can scale fast, but conduct failures can damage credibility even faster. The platforms that manage to sustain long term value will be required to run a fair market, enforce their own rules, and stay inside a clear regulatory perimeter. Prediction markets already price geopolitics. The next hurdle is showing they can police information risk with the same seriousness as any other exchange.
Talking Point
When a prediction market issues fines, suspensions, and CFTC backed enforcement over insider trading, does it still trade as a betting product, or does it start operating like exchange infrastructure?
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, artificial intelligence, 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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Terraform Lawsuit Puts Jane Street In Crypto Spotlight
Feb 27, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Activity | Digital Assets And Market Structure
Plan Administrator Compliant Puts Attention On Trading Conduct
On February 24 2026, a complaint filed in the Southern District of New York (83 page PDF) by Terraform plan administrator Todd R. Snyder accuses Jane Street and named employees of insider trading, fraud, and market manipulation tied to the May 2022 collapse of the Terra ecosystem.
The filing names Jane Street Group, Jane Street Capital, Bryce Pratt, Robert Granieri, and Michael Huang as defendants. It alleges that Jane Street used confidential information from Terraform insiders, including communications in a group chat identified in the complaint as “Bryce’s Secret”, to gather material non-public information and trade ahead of the UST depeg.
Do Kwon’s guilty plea on fraud charges thrust Terraform in the legal spotlight and forced the scale of the TerraUSD collapse. This lawsuit goes beyond Terraform’s own conduct and asks whether outside trading activity also helped deepen the damage.
See: Terraform Labs’ $4.55 Billion SEC Settlement
The plan administrator was appointed through Terraform’s wind down to pursue recovery claims and maximize value for creditors. The complaint states that the administrator has authority to bring claims on behalf of Terraform, the wind down trust, Luna Foundation Guard, and certain individual victims who assigned claims tied to the collapse. This is a recovery action. The plaintiff is seeking disgorgement and other remedies from parties alleged to have profited from, and contributed to, Terraform’s collapse.
This case now tests whether a major trading firm used information and timing to reduce its own risk while the broader market absorbed the losses.
What The Complaint Alleges
The complaint alleges that Jane Street sold UST on May 7 2022 after gaining an information edge, then benefited as UST lost its $1 peg within hours and the Terraform ecosystem entered a death spiral. It says those trades allowed Jane Street to unwind hundreds of millions of dollars of potential exposure at a critical point in the collapse.
The filing also points to the scale of emergency support during the crisis. It says Terraform bought more than 250 million UST on May 7, more than 200 million UST on May 8, and more than 1.9 billion UST between May 8 and May 10. It also says Luna Foundation Guard and third parties acting on its behalf used reserves to buy additional UST as the peg failed.
Why This Matters
This case puts one of the best known trading firms in global markets into a fresh crypto market integrity fight tied to one of the sector’s biggest failures. If the case moves forward and more evidence enters the public record, scrutiny may increase around how large market makers operate in digital assets, how private information moves between token issuers and trading firms, and how courts apply insider trading and market manipulation theories to crypto markets.
The complaint also underlines the scale of the defendant it targets. It describes Jane Street as responsible for more than 10% of all equity trades in North America and says net trading revenue rose above $24 billion in the first three quarters of 2025. Those figures are allegations in the filing, not court findings, but they help explain why this lawsuit will draw attention well beyond crypto.
See: When Fraud Controls Freeze Millions of Bank Accounts
For exchanges, brokers, lenders, and digital asset platforms, the immediate issue is control. A case built on alleged private chats, relationship networks, and trade timing puts information barriers, surveillance, and counterparty oversight back at the center of market risk.
Talking Point
If crypto markets face more lawsuits built on insider trading and manipulation claims, does the next major pressure point move from token design to trading conduct?
For investors, the Terra collapse already changed how the market views stablecoins. This lawsuit may force more attention toward trading conduct, information asymmetry, and whether crypto market structure is ready for the same legal standards applied in traditional markets.
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, artificial intelligence, 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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