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A global study of 2,000 executives at firms across markets revealed plans to increase investment in embedded finance, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks, and decentralized finance in 2023, including cautious optimism towards cryptocurrency.
75% of CxOs said their organizations have increased their sustainability investments over the past year
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: ESG, Financial Inclusion, Sustainable Finance
Top 10 Trends Reshaping Banking for 2023
Accenture | Michael Abbott | Jan 10, 2023
A combination of well-established forces and recent developments is reshaping banking.
- Overview: In the absence of that revenue stream, banks shifted their focus from the totality of customers’ financial needs to isolated products that continued to generate fees. At the same time, fintech innovators burst onto the scene, awash with cheap capital and valuing scale over financial returns. Now that positive rates have returned, the constellation of banking products is drifting into a more familiar and predictable orbit.
- Rising rates catalyze product innovation: It will come in the form of offerings similar to that of Amazon Prime.
- 2023 will see a renewed focus on branches: Without in-person interaction most banks have struggled to maintain close relationships.
- Demistifying the metaverse: Just as mobile did, the metaverse is opening a new world of possibilities. It won’t be without risk—but banks were invented to manage risk.
- Culture and Talent: Talent will make ever-increasing demands on banks’ leadership. If it isn’t given its due, it will become a burning platform.
See: Will Open Banking Launch in Canada This Year?
- Risk everywhere: As new risks emerge, banks that focus on helping customers solve their problems, rather than on collections, will outperform their peers.
- Data becomes a product: potential to transform the foundations of banking.
- From fintech disruptor to enabler: Incumbents are poised to reassert themselves as the “rightful owners of banking”—if they can find fintech-like offerings at reasonable prices.
- Green gets real and seeks common ground
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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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FIS Report: Embedded Finance, Web3 and ESG Lead 2023 Fintech Investment Focus
FIS Release | Kim Snider | Jan 24, 2023
A global study of 2,000 executives at firms across markets revealed plans to increase investment in embedded finance, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks, and decentralized finance in 2023, including cautious optimism towards cryptocurrency.
- Inaugural research by FIS 2023 Global Innovation Report asked c-suite and senior executives in financial services (banks, insurers, capital markets firms, and fintechs) and non-financial businesses (retail, restaurants, travel, gaming and digital content, and technology providers) globally about their key areas of financial investment in 2023.
- 4% of financial services firms’ executives across the globe say they will invest significantly in developing embedded finance products in 2023 as consumers demand more convenient ways to pay, bank and invest.
- Nearly two-thirds (61%) of all non-financial services executives told FIS it will be strategically important to have a presence in the metaverse in the next three years.
See:
Deloitte 2023 Sustainability Report: Most Organizations Have Increased Investment but Tough to Move the Needle
FT Partners Jan 2023 Blockchain and Crypto Market Update Report
- ESG is top of mind for financial services firms globally, with 60% of executives saying they are developing new ESG products and services.
- Nearly one-third (29%) of U.S. respondents expressed no interest today in developing cryptocurrency services, only 5% of financial services firms told FIS they do not anticipate offering such capabilities in three years’ time.
- Financial services firms cited a lack of ecosystem services to support crypto (29%), lack of interoperability between platforms (28%), and lack of clarity around regulations (26%) as key barriers to greater adoption within their organizations.
- There are concerns about DeFi, with 50% of financial services firms citing poor user experience as a barrier to adoption and 47% saying they need to better understand the risks involved before they will participate.
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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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Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence Governance
Chatham House | Kate Jones | Jan 10, 2023
Image: Unsplash/Markus Spiske
Governments and companies are already deploying AI to assist in making decisions that can have major consequences for the lives of individual citizens and societies.
- AI offers far-reaching benefits for human development but also presents risks. AI, its systems and its processes have the potential to alter the human experience fundamentally. But many sets of AI governance principles produced by companies, governments, civil society and international organizations do not mention human rights at all. This is an error that requires urgent correction.
- These include, among others, further division between the privileged and the unprivileged;
- erosion of individual freedoms through surveillance;
- and the replacement of independent thought and judgement with automated control.
See: Why You Should Review Your Data Governance and Privacy Risks in Canada
- Human rights are central to what it means to be human. They were drafted and agreed, with worldwide popular support, to define freedoms and entitlements that would allow every human being to live a life of liberty and dignity.
- Various myths about human rights have also contributed to their being overlooked: human rights are wrongly perceived as adding little to ethics; as preventing innovation; as being overly complex, vague, old-fashioned or radical; or as only concerning governments.
- As AI begins to reshape the human experience, human rights must be central to its governance. There is nothing to fear, and much to gain, from taking human rights as the baseline for AI governance.
- Failure to take account of human rights means setting aside well-established, widely acknowledged parameters of liberty, fairness and equality, as well as processes and accountability for their implementation.
See: The White House Unveils a New AI Bill of Rights Outlining Five Protections
- If human rights are to be placed at the centre of AI governance, the following practical actions are necessary for companies:
- Continue to promote AI ethics and responsible business agendas, while acknowledging the important complementary role of existing human rights frameworks;
- Champion a holistic commitment to all human rights standards from the top of the organization. Enable a change of corporate mindset, such that human rights are seen as a useful tool in the box rather than as a constraint on innovation;
- Recruit people with human rights expertise to join AI ethics teams to encourage multi-disciplinary thinking and spread awareness of human rights organization-wide. Use human rights as the common language and framework for multi-disciplinary teams addressing aspects of AI governance;
- Conduct human rights due diligence and adopt a human rights-based approach to AI ethics and impact assessment. Create decision-making structures that allow human rights risks to be monitored, flagged and acted upon on an ongoing basis;
- Ensure uses of AI are explainable and transparent, so that people affected can find out how an AI or AI-assisted decision was, or will be, made; and
- Establish a mechanism for individuals to seek remedy if they are dissatisfied with the outcome of a decision made or informed by AI.
Continue to the full article --> here
Download the 58 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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Mark Carney’s Climate Alliance Provides Billions for New Fossil Fuel Projects
FP | | Jan 17, 2023
Image: Unsplash/Scott Rodgerson
56 largest members provided US$269 billion to 102 large fossil fuel 'expanders' since joining the group
- Environmental groups are stepping up pressure on banks and asset managers to stop funding and investing in new fossil fuel projects, publishing a report that brings attention to new oil, gas and coal financing on a global scale by firms that claim to pursue net-zero policies.
- Their latest target in a growing public relations campaign: members of The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), launched in 2021 by UN climate envoy Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, who is now co-chair of the alliance alongside Michael Bloomberg.
- A study published Jan. 17 by a dozen groups including Reclaim Finance, Stand.earth, the Rainforest Action Network, Les Amis de la Terre France, and South Africa’s Centre for Environmental Rights, says the 56 largest members of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance — a sectoral subset of GFANZ members — provided loans and underwriting of US$269 billion to 102 large fossil fuel “expanders” since joining Carney’s group.
- This financing by global institutions including some of the largest banks in North America and Europe included 134 syndicated loans to 77 companies and US$101 billion in new debt and equity for 74 firms through 215 underwriting transactions
See: A conversation with Catherine McKenna former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change: Fighting greenwashing
GFANZ spokesperson:
“Based on research GFANZ commissioned last year, we know that investment in renewables need to be four times the levels going into fossil fuels by 2030 to restrict climate change consistent with the aims of the Paris Agreement. Members of the alliance are on track to detail how they are financing the transition of the energy sector when they publish interim targets and transition plans.
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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Deloitte 2023 Sustainability Report: Most Organizations Have Increased Investment but Tough to Move the Needle
Deloitte | Release | Jan 16, 2023
75% of CxOs said their organizations have increased their sustainability investments over the past year
- Deloitte built upon past research by surveying more than 2,000 CxOs across 24 countries to gauge concerns and actions from business leaders on climate change and sustainability.
- While every CxO surveyed responded that their organization felt the impacts of climate change this past year, some concerns:
- CxOs reported “resource scarcity/cost of resources” as the top issue already impacting their companies (46%),
- 45% highlighted “changing consumption patterns or preferences related to climate change”
- 43% reported “regulation of emissions” as other top issues impacting their companies.
- Additionally, around a third of executives said climate change is negatively affecting their employees’ physical (37%) and mental (32%) health.
- 82% of executives said they have been personally impacted by climate events over the past year, with extreme heat the most frequently cited issue, and 62% said they feel concerned or worried about climate change all or most of the time.
See: While Sustainability Software Booms, Investors Demand Climate Data Proof
- Organizations are feeling broad pressure to act on climate change from across their stakeholder groups:
- board members and management, regulators and government, and consumers and clients. Organizations are also feeling pressure from their shareholders and investors (66%), employees (64%), and civil society (64%).
- Employee activism is specifically driving increased action, with more than half of CxOs saying employee pressure on climate matters led their organizations to increase sustainability actions over the last year
- Nearly a quarter of CxOs said the difficulty of measuring their organizations’ environmental impact was a top barrier to increased action, and nearly one-fifth cited cost and focus on near-term issues as barriers.
Continue to the press release --> here
Download the 23 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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The Use and Regulation of Artificial Intelligence: When AI Meets Consumer Duty
Herbert Smith Freehills | Karen Anderson and Jon Ford | Jan 13, 2023
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP has published an article in Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law on artificial intelligence (AI) and the Consumer Duty.
AI with its power to process large volumes of data, can provide more personalisation of financial products and services for consumers at greater scale and efficiency, and at lower cost.
See: AI Robo-lawyer is Set for Its First U.S. Court Case
It can, in principle, enable firms to provide better support for vulnerable customers (for example, to consumers without standard credit histories, or through the use of simplified advice).
All this could help to advance the FCA’s desired outcome of increased access through greater financial inclusion.
Download the 2 page PDF 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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How Banks Can Use Blockchain To Improve ESG Initiatives
Forbes | | Oct 24, 2022
The forces pushing environmental, social and governance practices to the forefront of bank operations have been building for a generation. This has only accelerated in the past couple of years.
- The Biden Administration, including through the use of executive orders leveraging the National Economic Council, is pushing hard on investment in green technologies and industries.
- The European Union is seeing a flurry of ESG-related regulatory changes.
- Blockchain and ESG: Although cryptocurrencies are the best-known use of blockchain—the technology has other uses that leave a far smaller energy footprint and are more directly useful in meeting current challenges.
See: ESG report: Startups struggle on the E…but okay on the S and the G
- Accurate reporting: Blockchain-enabled data gathering provides both the breadth and depth necessary to get a real handle on what’s going on in huge economic sectors that are global in scope. The standardization of so much data collected from so many entry points can be the cornerstone of showing how well ESG programs are functioning.
- Carbon Credit Trading: Since their broad initialization as part of the 1997 UN Kyoto Protocol, trade in carbon credits has been one scheme that has helped “bend the curve” of greenhouse gas emissions.
- But one issue that has plagued this system is fraud. Blockchain offers a powerful new way to better monitor carbon offsets by creating monitoring systems that allow investors on one side of the world to access verified information about how their credits are being utilized on the other side of the globe.
- The continuous generation of transparent environmental reports will enhance the power of the CDM, which is already embedded in ESG protocols.
- Funding innovation: Distributed ledger technologies present the possibility of quickly getting investment funds to innovators, especially those working in developing nations who are often stymied when trying to ramp up ESG efforts by time-consuming and cumbersome distribution via traditional banking protocols.
See: Podcast: How blockchain could revolutionize green finance in Asia
- Supply Chain Transparency: For ESG monitoring purposes, one of blockchain’s primary uses is bringing a bird’s-eye view to supply chain management. A more sustainable, energy-efficient supply chain could deliver profound savings in transportation costs and the concurrent curtailing of carbon emissions that a better managed, more efficient system would bring.
- With distributed ledger technology, transactions at every step of the supply chain can be recorded and distributed.
- This brings an unheard-of level of transparency and traceability to the movement of goods around the globe. With automated IoT interfaces, data collection is seamless and less contingent on overworked individuals.
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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