Rojin Nair, Advisor
June 1st, 2021
At Incyub8 Inc, Rojin is focusing on nurturing and guiding various national and international start-[...]
Category Archives: Fintech International
Cryptoassets as National Currency? A Step Too Far
IMF Blog | Tobias Adrian and Rhoda Weeks-Brown | Jul 26, 2021
New digital forms of money have the potential to provide cheaper and faster payments, enhance financial inclusion, improve resilience and competition among payment providers, and facilitate cross-border transfers.
But doing so is not straightforward. It requires significant investment as well as difficult policy choices, such as clarifying the role of the public and private sectors in providing and regulating digital forms of money.
Some countries may be tempted by a shortcut: adopting cryptoassets as national currencies. Many are indeed secure, easy to access, and cheap to transact. We believe, however, that in most cases risks and costs outweigh potential benefits.
Cryptoassets are privately issued tokens based on cryptographic techniques and denominated in their own unit of account. Their value can be extremely volatile. Bitcoin, for instance, reached a peak of $65,000 in April and crashed to less than half that value two months later.
See: Ripple Pilots a Private Ledger for Central Banks Launching CBDCs
And yet, Bitcoin lives on. For some, it is an opportunity to transact anonymously—for good or bad. For others, it is a means to diversify portfolios and hold a speculative asset that can bring riches but also significant losses.
Cryptoassets are thus fundamentally different from other kinds of digital money. Central banks, for instance, are considering issuing digital currencies—digital money issued in the form of a liability of the central bank. Private companies are also pushing the frontier, with money that can be sent over mobile phones, popular in East Africa and China, and with stablecoins, whose value depends on the safety and liquidity of backing assets.
Cryptoassets as legal tender?
Bitcoin and its peers have mostly remained on the fringes of finance and payments, yet some countries are actively considering granting cryptoassets legal tender status, and even making these a second (or potentially only) national currency.
If a cryptoasset were granted legal tender status, it would have to be accepted by creditors in payment of monetary obligations, including taxes, similar to notes and coins (currency) issued by the central bank.
Countries can even go further by passing laws to encourage the use of cryptoassets as a national currency, that is, as an official monetary unit (in which monetary obligations can be expressed), and a mandatory means of payment for everyday purchases.
See: Moody’s says Crypto regulation a plus for banks, fintechs
Cryptoassets are unlikely to catch on in countries with stable inflation and exchange rates, and credible institutions. Households and businesses would have very little incentive to price or save in a parallel cryptoasset such as Bitcoin, even if it were given legal tender or currency status. Their value is just too volatile and unrelated to the real economy.
Even in relatively less stable economies, the use of a globally recognized reserve currency such as the dollar or euro would likely be more alluring than adopting a cryptoasset.
A cryptoasset might catch on as a vehicle for unbanked people to make payments, but not to store value. It would be immediately exchanged into real currency upon receipt.
Then again, real currency may not always be readily available, nor easily transferable. Moreover, in some countries, laws forbid or restrict payments in other forms of money. These could tip the balance towards widespread use of cryptoassets.
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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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European Government Funds May Get Distributed by European Crowdfunding Platforms
Crowdfund Insider | | Jul 26, 2021
Recently, a report was published regarding the European Commission distributing European (ESIF) funds through European crowdfunding platforms. Obviously, if this occurs it will be a boon for both platforms and issuers.
The report was written by Karsten Wenzlaff, Ana Odorovic and Ronald Kleverlaan, along with consulting firm PwC. The authors are well known in the European Fintech and crowdfunding sectors.
Crowdfund Insider connected with the authors of the report. Wenzlaff told CI:
“The Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) are the main instrument for the European Union to create long-term growth and cohesion and achieve the policy objectives – it is a huge budget which has increased again for the next budget period 2021-2027. The way it works is that each country gets a certain amount and then the so-called Managing Authorities (MAs) are in charge of distributing the funds according to guidelines by the European Commission. These Managing Authorities are often Ministries for Infrastructure or Development Agency. The vast amount of funds is distributed through grants.”
Wenzlaff explained that the breakthrough of this report is because, for the first time, the European Commission has created templates for the collaboration between the MAs and the crowdfunding platforms. But it has much more relevance beyond that because other public authorities on the regional and the national level can use these templates to collaborate with crowdfunding platforms.
See: GOOD NEWS: Canadian securities regulators adopt new nationally harmonized start-up crowdfunding rules
Wenzlaff said they also consider financial instruments, including equity investments and loans. Since usually grants are given to companies, this is also a huge step, because the introduction of financial instruments in public support means that the private investors can be paired with public money, the public authorities can support the private investor directly through credit risk guarantees or indirectly through co-investing.
The report provides an overview of the current status of the crowdfunding industry in Europe and the potential to use crowdfunding platforms by public authorities to realize the ambitions of the Cohesion Policy and provide funding to projects through crowdfunding platforms. A recent blog post by Kleverlaan outlines the relatively new European Crowdfunding Regulation (ECSP) stating that it should boost the development of crowdfunding across the EU. The ECSP allows platforms to operate across the EU based on a single set of rules, under the supervision of the financial regulator in each Member State. The new rules are expected to become actionable in November of 2021.
The European Cohesion Policy is described as one of the key instruments of the European Union with a substantial budget of €373 billion. The report touts the opportunity for ESIF Managing Authorities (MAs) to take advantage of crowdfunding platforms to channel resources towards segments of the market that may be underserved yet important to the European economy.
See: Recent Decision by UK Financial Ombudsman Service Challenges Investment Crowdfunding Model
Kleverlaan explained that the new ECSP regulation is a catalyst for enabling the European Commission and the Managing Authorities to develop models to work together with crowdfunding platforms, due to the harmonized legal framework.
“We have identified several case studies in which public authorities already implemented a procurement process to select a crowdfunding platform for a project of several years in which match funding instruments were implemented.”
When asked if a managing authority (the government) investing funds in a private firm is the best use of public money, Kleverlaan said they have identified four different blueprint models of how MAs can start working with crowdfunding platforms, each with advantages and disadvantages.
- Providing grants outside a crowdfunding campaign
- Investing through a lending-based crowdfunding platform
- Providing guarantees to investors
- Operating a crowdfunding platform
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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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Trullion Platform Review: A Reliable Software to Automate Your Lease Accounting Process
Guest Post | Jul 29, 2021
Sticking to manual lease accounting processes and compliance with relevant standards can be a huge nightmare.
The solution?
Use Trullion, a dependable software that uses AI to automate and simplify your lease accounting workflows and compliance processes.
In this review, we’ll look into how Trullion can help you establish seamless lease accounting processes and make complying with the required standards more efficient.
What is Trullion?
Trullion is an Artificial Intelligence or AI-powered Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that automates lease accounting workflows for auditors, Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), and accountants.
The platform combines the structured and unstructured aspects of accounting by reading Excel and PDF files and turning them into financial workflows, revenue recognition and lease accounting.
Trullion is designed to provide a solution to accounting process silos most Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and accounting firms often fail to address.
See: Top 12 AI Use Cases: Artificial Intelligence in FinTech
It can give you a 360° real-time view of your financial data, extract information from source documents and connect them to your audit trail, and speed up your ASC 842, IFRS 16, GASB 87 compliance process.
Main features and functionalities
Essentially, Trullion automates your tedious and repetitive financial and lease accounting workflows and tasks through AI technology.
Below are the lease accounting 2.0 solution’s critical features that help you streamline your lease accounting processes.
AI-powered contract extraction
Uploading your contracts into the Trullion software is a pretty straightforward process.
On the software’s interface, click the blue button, the browse option, or drag and drop your contracts or lease agreements (PDF, XLSX, or DOC file formats).
Click Import to upload your document.
Trullion uses Machine Learning (ML) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to analyze your contract and find relevant information for you.
The contract data displays on the right side of the interface and you’ll see the ASC 842, IFRS 16, and GASB 87 data inputs on the left side.
You'll see the software’s relevant recommended data points. Click each one, and the software will instantly highlight them within the agreement, allowing you to go over and approve them quickly.
These features simplify and automate extracting key data points from your contracts, allowing you to generate necessary reports efficiently.
Visual modifications
After reviewing a lease agreement, you can lock it to make it a read-only record.
To update the record due to, let’s say, a renewal, you can unlock it and process the modifications.
Add a description, the modification date, and select the type of modification, such as a term or payment change.
Click Modify, and this should open the workflow. You can add new documents or details and adjust the agreement accordingly.
Trullion’s visual modification feature will create a timeline that shows the before (historical data) and after (current data).
With this, you’ll see the active record on your Reporting page and the historical view of records, allowing you to get quick before and after views of the agreement details. This helps streamline your lease accounting process.
Bulk upload and modifications
Manually uploading data and applying modifications are often long and painful tasks, especially if you have a large asset portfolio or implement modern audit processes.
Trullion provides a solution through its bulk upload and modifications feature.
Using the upload tool, drag and drag your worksheet containing your records. The software will detect the column headers within your data automatically. You can then match the column headers with your desired data fields.
You can preview the data to check if you’ve got everything sorted out properly, then click Import. This should import all your data at once, allowing you to upload your data in bulk seamlessly.
Once imported, you can click on any of the lease records and view and process them within Trullion’s system.
What if your source data (Excel worksheet) gets updated or if you add new data?
Trullion allows you to update or modify your lease agreement information within the software easily.
See: Top 5 In-demand Jobs Post COVID-19?
Let’s say you modified the lease agreement information, such as extending the date of the contract in your Excel worksheet.
To update the records within Trullion, navigate to the software’s uploading tool and drag and drop the worksheet with the updated lease agreement data.
Once uploaded, select the same template you used for the records you want to update, and the software will remember the existing data fields. It will show you the modified records.
Under the Changed category, click on each record to show the changes. You can also view the old and the new values by clicking the Show Changes option.
The software will also detect data removed from your records, such as assets that are no longer in the worksheet.
You can choose to terminate, ignore, or modify them.
The last category shows you the unchanged records for your reference. Click Update Contracts, and you should be good to go.
The process is quick and easy, saving you tons of time and effort by reducing manual data uploading and updating, leading to efficient lease accounting workflows and processes.
360° audit reporting
Trullion offers reporting features that help you go through the steps of ASC 842, IFRS 16, and GASB 87 and generate all your Right-of-Use (ROU) assets, liability, and other entries.
After bringing in all your PDFs and Excel-based documents, you can create your reports efficiently.
Select the journal entries from any given period, view relevant contracts, and see disclosure and other details. When you’re done, you can export the data into Excel for review.
Click on any cell containing your exported data, and you’ll see the formula used within the software. This gives you and your auditor a 360-degree view of the audit trail.
You can also go to the sheet containing your contracts and click the links within the journal entries and disclosures. This will take you directly back to the original agreement on Trullion.
Wrapping up our Trullion platform review
Trullion provides the features you need to ensure confidence and transparency in handling your financial data and managing your lease accounting processes with ease.
With the software’s AI-based technology, you’ll get a single source of truth and have real-time visibility into your company’s financial data and processes.
In a nutshell, Trullion’s solution can automate critical aspects of your lease accounting processes, help you implement modifications easily, and ensure compliance with all the required standards.
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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LendingClub Reports Strong 2nd Quarter Results, Shares Rise Dramatically
Crowdfund Insider | | Jul 28, 2021
LendingClub (NYSE:LC), a Fintech that started as a peer-to-peer lender and now operating as a digital bank, has posted strong 2nd quarter results that easily topped expectations. LendingClub finally turned the corner on profitability shredding guidance that had expected a loss. Shares moved considerably higher in after-hours trading during a crowded earnings announcement day.
At the start of 2021, LendingClub completed the acquisition of Radius Bank thus entering the red hot digital banking sector. This quarter is the first earnings round as a nationally chartered digital bank.
According to LendingClub sequential revenue increased by 93%, driven by growth in marketplace lending revenue and increased net interest income from the retained portfolio of consumer loans. Total revenue was $204.4 million, almost double the previous quarter, with net income jumping to $9.4 million – in stark contrast to the $47.1 million loss delivered in Q1.
See: Why LendingClub’s Acquisition Of Radius Bank Is A Smart Deal
The fact that LendingClub will now be able to hold deposits as a bank means a lower cost of funding for its online lending segment.
LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn, issued the following statement:
“Our first full quarter operating a digital bank was the most profitable quarter in LendingClub’s history. This is the beginning of a dramatically enhanced earnings trajectory for the business. Our transformation is fueled by our competitive advantages, which include our 3.5 million-plus members, deep data capabilities, marketplace model as well as our more efficient operating platform. Our earnings are being bolstered by our bank, which is generating a new stream of recurring net interest income that is only beginning to contribute to our bottom-line results.”
LendingClub highlighted the following stats:
- Marketplace revenue grew 86% sequentially, primarily reflecting 105% growth in origination fees and a 132% increase in gains on loan sales as loans sold through the marketplace doubled.
- Net interest income grew 148% sequentially to $45.9 million, as the bank’s loan portfolio (excluding PPP loans) grew 27% sequentially, propelled by growth in the consumer loan portfolio of 145% to $795M.
- Deposits grew to $2.5 billion, helping fund growth in the bank’s loan portfolio.
Updates:
Shares in LendingClub have rocketed higher today jumping by over 55% (as of this moment).
The few analysts that participated in the earnings call congratulated LendingClub on its performance. Earlier today, Wedbush analyst Henry Coffey boosted his price target to $33.50 (from $25), reiterating an outperform call, after calling the results “amazing.”
See: Fintech Startups Broke Apart Financial Services. Now The Sector Is Rebundling
By becoming a nationally chartered bank, via its acquisition of Radius Bank, LendingClub is now financing its own loans, alongside a growing number of other institutions – including other banks (which now account for more than half of funding including LendingClub Bank).
Management also said there were some unanticipated benefits by becoming a bank as being regulated as a bank helped boost confidence for bank investors. There is a lot of confidence in credit quality.
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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Biden’s ‘Antitrust Revolution’ Overlooks AI—at Americans’ Peril
Wired | | Jul 27, 2021
A handful of companies have outsize influence on the world’s artificial intelligence. Policymakers must act now to stem the rise of powerful monopolies.
Without intervention, AI could also help undermine democracy–through amplifying misinformation or enabling mass surveillance. The past year and a half has also underscored the impact of algorithmically powered social media, not just on the health of democracy, but on health care itself.
The overall direction and net impact of AI sits on a knife's edge, unless AI R&D and applications are appropriately channeled with wider societal and economic benefits in mind. How can we ensure that?
A handful of US tech companies, including Amazon, Alibaba, Alphabet, Facebook, and Netflix, along with Chinese mega-players such as Baidu, are responsible for $2 of every $3 spent globally on AI. They’re also among the top AI patent holders. Not only do their outsize budgets for AI dwarf others’, including the federal government’s, they also emphasize building internally rather than buying AI. Even though they buy comparatively little, they’ve still cornered the AI startup acquisition market.
See: Nobel-winning Psychologist: ‘Clearly AI is going to win. How people are going to adjust is a fascinating problem’
Many of these are early-stage acquisitions, meaning the tech giants integrate the products from these companies into their own portfolios or take IP off the market if it doesn’t suit their strategic purposes and redeploy the talent. According to research from my Digital Planet team, US AI talent is intensely concentrated. The median number of AI employees in the field’s top five employers—Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple—is some 18,000, while the median for companies six to 24 is about 2,500—and it drops significantly from there. Moreover, these companies have near-monopolies of data on key behavioral areas. And they are setting the stage to become the primary suppliers of AI-based products and services to the rest of the world.
Biden's antitrust revolutionaries need a four-step plan to confront the AI revolution.
Antitrust authorities must first be forward-looking. They must recognize that the AI chess pieces being moved today will shape tomorrow’s endgame–particularly in a tech industry with high barriers to entry and early moves that are hard to reverse after scale. Tech antitrust action often occurs after it’s too late. Policymakers should also trace the outlines of multiple future AI scenarios, including a dystopian one. They must imagine, for example, a society that suffers from “algorithmic poverty,” in which users generate data as unpaid “labor,” which is used to train algorithms that in turn displace wage-producing labor.
See: Lawmakers Take Aim at Big Tech with Push for Sweeping Overhaul of Antitrust
Policymakers must also separate AI applications that are value-enhancing for society, like speeding up scientific research, from others that might be value-destroying, like rapidly creating misinformation echo chambers, even if such developments are valuable for the firms bringing them to market. The economic impact can be broken down into the ways in which AI augments and substitutes existing activities and where it imposes negative social costs. Such a framework can help regulators provide guidance and guardrails to AI development. Selective taxes, tax breaks, and credits and subsidies can nudge corporate decisionmakers in their investment choices.
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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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How to Reduce Your Business Costs
Guest Post | Jul 28, 2021
Source: Pexels
Over 80% of enterprises fail due to cash flow problems.
The figure is a dead giveaway of why you need to minimize your expenses. After all, reducing your business costs has a direct impact on your cash flow.
Not only does it help you pocket more money, but it also bolsters your business financially.
If you’re looking for tried and tested tips to reduce your business costs, consider following the tips below.
1. Invest in preventive measures
Risks are inevitable for businesses, and when they happen, they often eat up a considerable chunk of your profits.
To avoid experiencing the financial nightmare that comes from unforeseen threats, you must set preventive and protective measures to mitigate risks.
For instance, if you invested in creating an app for your business, you need to ensure your critical business codes are protected against system failure or cybercriminals. An effective way of doing this is to back up your codes regularly.
To avoid spending countless hours running your backups, which increases your business cost, run automatic DevOps backups. That way, your backups are done with very little to no workforce hours needed, and you know your code is always backed up on time.
Investing in preventive measures, such as backups, gives your business an added level of security that protects you from forking out thousands of dollars should anything unfortunate happen.
2. Trim your workflows
The more steps you add to your workflows, the more time it’ll take your team to complete their tasks. The chances of committing errors and delays are also higher. All this translates to added, unnecessary costs.
That said, the best way to streamline your workflows is through automation.
To begin trimming, list your departments’ daily business processes.
Next, identify the menial, tedious, and repetitive steps, and look for online tools to take care of them for you.
See: Getting tangible about intangibles: The future of growth and productivity?
For example, to bill and gather online payments from customers, use platforms with robust features that let you create invoices quickly, send automatic reminders, get paid in a single click, and more.
Also, leverage tools that instantly integrate apps, so you don’t need to jump from one tab or program to another to accomplish tasks.
3. Create a project wiki
If your team members don’t have a system for sharing project information and updates, their collaboration will not be cohesive. Because they’re unaware of the essential project details, they are likely to duplicate tasks, miss out on deadlines, and waste time, effort, and money along the way.
To prevent that from happening, you need a project wiki -- a page that multiple team members can edit. It also serves as a central filing document with resources accessible anytime. It’s also where you can store, share, and archive bits of handy information for ongoing projects and future applications.
Use project wikis’ management capacities, admin insights, automation and integration abilities, and other features to categorize information and stay on top of your knowledge sharing.
4. Invest in asset maintenance
Maintaining your physical and digital assets lengthens their lifespan and usefulness to your business. It also protects your company’s sustainability -- especially if they are your primary revenue sources.
For example, if you’re running an equipment rental business, you should ensure your machines are kept in their optimum condition. Otherwise, your repair costs will skyrocket and you’ll need to keep procuring new equipment earlier than you ought to.
What’s more, your malfunctioning equipment could harm your clients, and if they do, you run the risk of being sued. You’ll then have to spend heaps of money to settle legal bills.
To prevent that, you must run regular equipment inspections. Leverage cloud-based equipment inspection forms available on the market. This heightens the accuracy and efficiency of your equipment inspections, ensuring you get the correct results, and ultimately saves you time, money, and labor.
What’s more, when your equipment maintenance records are on the cloud, you can access your records from anywhere as long as you have access to the internet.
5. Outsource
If you’re living in first-class cities, especially in first-world countries, you need to pay thousands to get premium talent. The same thing happens when you acquire equipment in your local area.
Instead of going that route, you can opt to outsource.
For example, if you’re looking to run a video marketing campaign, look for a marketing agency that offers its services at reasonable rates yet produces exceptional results.
By outsourcing, you can avoid having to buy your own camera, video editing software, etc. Most marketing agencies offering video marketing services have the equipment and tools needed to get the job done so you can avoid procuring equipment that you might not necessarily need in the future.
6. Offer exceptional customer support
It costs about 4 to 5 times more to get new customers compared to selling to existing ones. You spend more on referrals, PR, events, and other fees to convince and acquire new buyers -- whereas already loyal shoppers spend up to nearly 60%.
That’s why you must invest in exceptional helpdesk software and customer support. That way, you can nurture your relationships with existing customers and sell to them easily.
With exceptional customer support, you can reduce your marketing spend and still get truckloads of sales since you leverage your relationships with existing customers.
Additionally, create loyalty programs, communicate proactively, uncover your shoppers’ sentiments, and interact with them on social media. These tactics make your customers feel extra valued and effectively drive engagement -- both of which are necessary for retaining them.
7. Switch from paper to digital methods
Expenses for paper, ink, mailing supplies and other materials (including postage and courier) can seem minimal, but they accumulate to considerable amounts if you don’t monitor your usage. Statistics reveal that these line items can reach $400,000 annually for an average company.
Instead of paper-based processes, switch to electronic systems. That way, you can save up on associated costs and equipment, reprinting due to edits, and physical space for keeping the materials. You can also get rid of the stress and clutter that can hamper your revenue-generating productivity (not to mention being environmentally friendly).
See: How Small Businesses Can Compete By Leveraging Data Insights
Documents that you can digitize include invoices, billing statements, quotes, receipts, progress reports, onboarding files, vacation and sick leave requests, reimbursement forms, and more. By going paperless (or paper-light), you reduce this recurring business expense -- and use the money to invest in more profitable resources.
Work on reducing your business costs now.
The tips shared in this guide are far from complete.
However, if you endeavor to take action and follow the tips, you are bound to see an improvement in your business expenses.
You’ll spend less on staffing hours, you can avoid needless expenses caused by accidents or unforeseen challenges, and you’ll even see your productivity and bottom line increase.
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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Goldman Sachs Files Defi ETF Application
Bitcoin.com | Sergio Goschenko | Jul 27, 2021
Goldman Sachs, one of the biggest banking institutions in the world, has filed an application to offer an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) linked to the performance of decentralized finance (defi) companies. The instrument, if approved, would help institutions and retail investors gain exposure to defi assets with the help of a regulated bank like Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs Proposes Defi ETF
Goldman Sachs, one of leading commercial banks in the world, has introduced an application to the SEC to offer a defi-linked ETF. The defined ETF is called “Goldman Sachs Innovate Defi and Blockchain Equity ETF,” and it would seek to provide exposure to these technologies for regulated institutions. The performance of the fund would be linked to the Solactive Blockchain Technology Performance-Index.
See: 10 Highlights From Goldman Sachs’ June 2021 Digital Asset Thought Piece
This index follows a portfolio of tech industries that are invested in blockchain technologies. The index includes companies like Nokia, Alphabet, IBM, Microsoft, and Overstock. This would be the first ETF that aims to capitalize on the popularity that the defi sector has experienced this year. As Bitcoin.com News reported in June, Goldman Sachs has been courting the cryptocurrency sector recently, having partnered with Galaxy Digital to provide bitcoin futures products.
This filing is just another piece of evidence that indicates big banks are now interested in bringing their services and structures to the cryptocurrency market. While many of these disregarded cryptocurrency in the beginning, they are now focused on integrating investment products that are designed to bring traditional investors to the crypto sphere.
Goldman Sachs released a note on the state of the cryptocurrency market earlier this month when it stated that Ether could surpass Bitcoin as the most important crypto because the former has the “highest real use potential.”
This view of the crypto ecosystem could have fueled the ETF application made by the investment bank, focused on following defi and blockchain-based companies.
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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