Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Fintech Interviews and Podcasts
Interested in a High Interest Bitcoin Saving’s Account? Interview with Ledn CEO, Adam Reeds
NCFA | Craig Asano | Nov 1, 2019
NCFA recently sat down with Toronto-based Ledn's CEO and Co-Founder Adam Reeds (LinkedIn) to learn more about the rise of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and the company's tremendous growth in Latin America.
There are a number of growing DeFi use cases based around blockchain technologies and decentralized networks from the issuance of stablecoins as a means to create monetary banking type services, peer to peer or aggregate lending and borrowing products as well as tokenized platforms all of which are providing underserviced markets with alternative solutions to traditional financial services with fewer intermediaries, lower costs and arguably improved security.
Q1. What’s the story behind the launch and ultimate vision of Ledn?
Adam Reeds: Ledn was conceptualized in 2016 after we, as founders, experienced a gap in the market for accessing financing for our bitcoin assets. Bitcoin has several fundamentals that make it very attractive for financing. Bitcoin is non-jurisdictional (it is the same everywhere, globally), has
established market value and trades 24/7, has strong liquidity and is divisible. Yet despite these strong attributes, at the time of conceptualizing Ledn, as still today, there are limited options for financing bitcoin.
Listen: Bitcoin Backed Loans and 2x Credit – Putting Your Crypto to Work
From inception, we wanted to be sure that Ledn was accessible to everyone globally. To do so we knew that we had to build a platform that was simple and secure with a strong focus on compliance. We assembled an experienced team of technology, finance, legal and regulatory professionals and set out to build an online platform where individuals and businesses can access financial services for bitcoin.
Ledn’s mission is to help more people save in bitcoin, while standardizing rates and service for financial products globally.
Q2. We see that Ledn has a growing list of products, can you give us a brief run-down and talk about the markets and traction to date?
Adam Reeds: Launching from Canada, Ledn now active in 51 countries and has launched 3 products to date.
Its first product is Borrow - a bitcoin-backed loan which allows people to borrow dollars without selling their bitcoin. The second product is Save - a interest-bearing savings account that pays interest on bitcoin, in bitcoin. Its most recent product is B2X - a product that allows customers to instantly double their bitcoin holding by tying the purchase of bitcoin together with a dollar loan.
Given the need for improved financial products in the region, and the background of Ledn’s team, Ledn’s focus market (outside of Canada) has been Latin America and is seeing very strong traction of its products in the region to date. Over 51% of Ledn’s customers are now from Latin America.
Q3. Are all borrowers/loans considered equal or are there restrictions on who can borrow, use of funds, liquidity?
Adam Reeds: The great thing about dealing only in bitcoin is that we can treat all of the assets of our customers equally. Given our loans are asset-backed, we do not consider the credit quality of our borrowers in our underwriting. Our qualification in considering who we interact with is completely tied to ensuring we follow Canadian and local laws.
The great thing about dealing only in bitcoin is that we can treat all of the assets of our customers equally.
We abide by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (“FINTRAC”) regulations with respect to know your customer (“KYC”) and anti-money laundering procedures. We require all of our customers to complete KYC documentation regardless of the amounts we deal with, and consider strong compliance a key factor of our success to date.
See: Living on Defi: How I Survive Argentina’s 50% Inflation
Q4. A high interest bitcoin savings account is interesting given the low rate that consumers and businesses generally earn in traditional savings accounts. How does this work and has there been a lot of interest to date in the service?
Adam Reeds: The economics of the savings account relies on a market demand for borrowing bitcoin. Typically, there are three main use cases for borrowing bitcoin; (1) providing working capital for an exchange that needs to keep a float of bitcoin to facilitate buy-orders, but does want to take bitcoin price risk, (2) facilitating short positions, for proprietary trading firms to bet a price decline in bitcoin or (3) facilitating trading arbitrage opportunities such as differences that exist in the price of bitcoin on various futures markets or exchanges.
The interest rate that Ledn is able to pay on its Savings account is dependent on the demand for the various activities above.
Ledn has had strong uptake in its savings account as it is a complementary product to the loan portfolio - providing a way for users to earn more bitcoin with their bitcoin.
Q5. What kind of Canadian regulations govern the Ledn platform and services?
Adam Reeds: Canada’s FINTRAC rules related to AML and KYC were recently updated to include dealers in virtual currency. However, FINTRAC has not yet opened up registration for this activity, as the requirement to register as a Money Service Business (“MSB”) will not come in place until June 1, 2020. Despite the registration not yet being available, we have taken a proactive approach and have built KYC requirements into our technology platform from day one. All of our customers are required to complete KYC documentation to access any of our products.
We also follow and abide by regulations related to consumer protection and private lending activities both in Canada, as well as the local laws for which its customers are resident. On top of it all, we abide by a simple concept - there’s what you have to do, and what you should do - we do what we should do and have enforced strong compliance in all of our technology and processes. We treat our customers fairly, and focus on keeping our products simple and transparent.
Q6. Tell us what inspires you the most these days?
Adam Reeds: Most of the world does not have the savings tools that Canadians benefit from. In Canada, we have the luxury of stable real estate and capital markets, and have many options for investing and storing our wealth. For those that lack these savings tools, bitcoin is proving to be an incredible alternative. Ledn is excited by the potential to work with an asset that can unify standards for financial products, and deliver a better experience to people around the globe.
Most of the world does not have the savings tools that Canadians benefit from.
Q7. Do you have any insights or lessons that you’d like to offer the community on founding a fintech startup in Canada?
Adam Reeds: The most important thing in a start-up is to start. Great ideas are 10%, execution is 90%. Surround yourself with people that bring diverse skill sets and motivate each other. Each person you add to the team at the beginning of the company will make or break your success. Choose wisely, and for those that agree to join you on the journey, treat them well and align them with what you want to build - as a team.
See: Lock BTC, Get DAI: Lending Firm Bridges Bitcoin-DeFi Divide in Latin America
Along the way, make sure tasks are solved in this order.
- What do we want to do
- Why are we doing it
- How do we do it
Most people forget about the why - it is the most important part.
Canada’s diversity is definitely its strength. Albeit all Canadian citizens, Ledn’s team consists of only one born and raised Canadian, with the rest of our full team originally from Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, Croatia, Egypt and Hong Kong. We are proud to have built Ledn in Canada and to bring our company to the world stage.
Thanks Adam - wishing you and the entire Ledn team all the success at scaling Ledn's model globally!
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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Globalizing Fintech In Action: A Discussion With Harinder Takhar of Paytm
Forbes | Alex Lazarow | Oct 27, 2019
Fintech used to be a local game. Increasingly, fintechs are taking a global stance. In my recent op-ed, I covered some of the drivers of this phenomenon, including an evolution towards regulatory openness, the rise of fintech enablers and a shift towards a more global outlook.
To dig deeper into this growing trend, I sat down with founders of leading fintechs who have successfully navigated multi-market expansions. The first in the series was with David Vélez, Founder and CEO of Nubank, an emerging markets financial services provider. Today, I sat down with Harinder Takhar, the CEO of Paytm Labs Inc., and former CEO of Paytm India.
Below we discuss Paytm’s multi-market lens, from starting out in India, to expanding across Canada, Australia, Japan and beyond.
Alex Lazarow: Could you tell us about your business?
Harinder Takhar: Paytm was founded in 2010 and is one of the first digital payment platforms in India. Not only does the company offer individual transactions, merchant payments and point-of-sale systems. It now also offers financial products such as credit cards and the first mobile-first bank with zero online transaction charges and no minimum balance requirement. Paytm has also invaded the ecommerce space with Paytm Mall, event ticketing services, wealth management, insurance and digital gold services.
See: India Challenges China in Global Fintech Fundraising
In 2014 we expanded to Toronto, Canada and started Paytm Labs Inc. We began as a research and development division of Paytm where we’ve applied big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to Paytm’s data assets to provide optimal financial products to over 420 million consumers and over 12 million merchants in India.
In 2017, the Paytm Canada application launched and offers a consumer-facing mobile app allowing Canadians to pay their bills using multiple payment options and the ability to earn rewards via their smartphone. We are a registered Money Services Business (MSB), which is regulated by FINTRAC. As we continue to grow our operations in Canada, we opened an office in Montreal in the summer of 2019.
In 2018, we embarked in a joint venture between Paytm, Softbank and Yahoo! Japan; known as PayPay. Teams from three different countries came together to launch a QR-based smartphone payment settlement service in Japan offered to both merchants and customers.
Lazarow: How did you choose your first market?
Takhar: It was a tough personal decision to relocate to Canada. However, once I officially received an invitation to immigrate to Canada, I could not pass on the opportunity for myself and my family.
Upon settling into Canada, both myself and Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Paytm Founder) agreed that opening a research and development division in Toronto, Canada would be in the company’s best interest. With the some of the world’s best educational institutions located within the province of Ontario, offering the best computer science engineering programs, it was a quick and easy decision for both of us.
See: India Challenges China in Global Fintech Fundraising
Lazarow: What factors went into the decision to expand? How did you know it was the right time?
Takhar: Back in 2014, big data, machine learning and AI were still gaining traction. At that time, the Paytm app had ~22 million registered customers. While we were able to identify the problem, in our case fraudulent transactions, finding a solution was trickier. This is when we knew that we must develop a system internally.
And, we did just that! We built an in-house anti-fraud platform that uses machine learning to identify fraudulent transactions. It provides real-time streaming data processing engine that allows small business owners and larger retail merchants with the ability to build customer risk profiles. The profiles can be used to create rules and render a fraud action recommendation.
Today, this platform makes up to 50 million decision points per day, and over 130 billion in transaction volume per year.
Lazarow: How did you prioritize your next couple markets?
Takhar: We prioritized by the individual opportunity in the market, and the readily resources that are available to us.
Lazarow: What was required to expand in the new market?
Takhar: Whenever we enter into a new market, we start with looking at the infrastructure. We focus on getting to the core of the problem, building a solution that works for that market, and then using technology to solve that problem.
Team perspective is also very important to us. We look for and hire individuals that have passion and ambition. So, whether we are looking for buy-in internally, or building a new team in a that market, it’s important for the team to emotionally connect with the cause, so that they can help build the best solution.
See: Fintech Investor Interview: Karim Gillani, General Partner, Luge Capital
Lazarow: What were some of the biggest challenges in expanding to new markets?
Takhar: Naturally, each market has faced its own challenges. The key is to not get discouraged, but to look to the end-user and solve the problem that you know will help to simplify their lives.
Lazarow: How do you work with regulators in your new markets?
Takhar: It is important to work with the regulators in any new market. We make a point to get to know the key stakeholders, build a trusting relationship with them, finding out what it is that they require from us, and showing them what it is that we are trying to build.
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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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Omer Ismail — Head of Marcus U.S. (Goldman Sachs’ Consumer Business)
Wharton Fintech via Medium | Peter Jankovsky | Sep 15, 2019
In our latest podcast, Peter Jankovsky (WG’20) is joined by Omer Ismail, the head of Goldman Sachs’ US consumer business.
In this role, Omer oversees the Marcus by Goldman Sachs and Clarity Money businesses as well as the Goldman Sachs/Apple credit card partnership.
Omer was originally the consumer business’ first employee, and under his leadership, Goldman Sachs’ US business has grown to over 4 million customers, $5 B in loan balances, $50 B in deposits, and 1,300 employees.
See:
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Goldman Sachs is slashing employee pay as it ramps up new tech ventures like the Apple Card
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Inflection point:Seven transformative shifts in US retail banking
-
What does the future of banking look like, according to the experts?
In this extensive interview, Omer dives into:
- The story behind Goldman’s decision to enter consumer banking and how it went about understanding consumer pain points to deliver a unique value proposition
- How the consumer business operates as a distinct business within the broader Goldman umbrella, and how its focus on constant iteration of design and UX delivers a differentiated customer experience
- Surprises and challenges that Goldman tackled as it scaled its consumer business
- Thoughts on what’s next for Goldman in the consumer banking space, as well as Omer’s view on opportunities/challenges in the market
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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Expert Roundup: DeFi Smart Contract Audits
DeFiprime | Nick Sawinyh | Sep 19, 2019
When it comes to “being your own bank,” having the ability to evaluate the security of the tools at your disposal becomes a necessity.
A software audit is a process where an individual or team examines the code that lies behind a piece of software with the goal of uncovering any bugs, security breaches, or violations of programming conventions before the code gets deployed. Smart contract audits play a critical role in evaluating the technical risks associated with a dApp but as a relatively new form of code, the standards for software audits of smart contracts remain in their infancy.
Companies like ChainSecurity, Trail of Bits, and Certik provide smart contract audits and have adopted their own standards for how a proper audit should be conducted. Until the industry adopts its own standard, however, customers have to rely on the reputation of these companies and the team members conducting the audit to evaluate the quality of a potential audit. To help you understand the current state of smart contract security, we’ve gathered insights from a number of industry experts.
See: Robocop vs. Terminator in Fintech; Comparing DeFi originations to Digital Lenders in the early years
Q1: What is the smart contract audit exactly
There is a lot of misconceptions in the space, like many of DeFi users thinking that smart contract audit is a sort of silver bullet and sign of security (or lack of) of the dApp.
Hubert Ritzdorf, ChainSecurity:
A smart contract audit is an independent review that assesses the security and correctness of the code. This provides the following advantages. First, users obtain an independent opinion on how the smart contract behaves, which can alert them about potential threats. Project managers receive valuable feedback about their projects and can take the necessary steps to mitigate security risks. Finally, developers receive important security advice and concrete security bug reports. However, not all audits are the same. The value provided by an audit depends on the technology used to conduct it and the expertise of the audit team.
Dan Guido, Trail of Bits:
Think of security assessments like getting your car inspected: If you do it early enough, the mechanic can recommend parts to replace and preventative maintenance that can avert leaving you stranded at the side of the road later. If you wait until 300,000 miles to get your first service, the damage might be irreparable.
The amount of time you allot for inspection also makes a big difference: Give the mechanic 30 minutes, and they might only have time to use an automated scanner to determine that your spark plugs are bad. Give the mechanic a day, and they might have time to diagnose the underlying cause of why the spark plugs became bad (failed sensors? wiring? engine running rich?).
Scope also matters: Request that the mechanic only diagnose problems with the alternator, and the car may drive away with a repaired alternator as well as a latent, undiagnosed issue with the transmission.
It is the mechanic’s job to provide advice, but it is ultimately up to the owner to decide if, when, and how to implement the recommendations.
See: Fintech, decentralization pose risks: Report
Daryl Hok, CertiK:
In the simplest sense, a smart contract audit is a third-party review of the source code of a smart contract. Although a completed audit means that the code was reviewed, the rigorousness of the audit may vary substantially - and this rigor is really what matters for security, not merely the presence of an audit. For instance, a dApp may flaunt that no errors were found during the audit process, but it’s difficult to determine whether this means that the code quality was extremely high or whether the auditor was really bad.
At CertiK, we specialize in using Formal Verification to prove or disprove the correctness of source code; we apply mathematical proofs to compute source code outcomes and prove the absence of bugs, meaning that, if there are no bugs found, it is not possible for the specified vulnerabilities to exist.
Q2: Are there degrees of “approval”?
Are there some contracts where you’re more confident they are solid vs. others where you can’t find a problem, but you are less confident?
Hubert Ritzdorf, ChainSecurity:
A limited audit scope affects confidence levels. Before the audit begins, we determine the scope together with the customer. It can be decided not to review certain dependencies or components due to time or budget constraints. To clarify this, our audit reports always precisely state the scope of the audit.
Dan Guido, Trail of Bits:
We try to make it easy to understand what happened on a security review. If you’re investigating the health of a project, then pay attention to these sections in our reports:
- Executive Summary. This section includes a brief review of what we did, what we found, and what we recommend as next steps. It should make clear how much work is ahead of the project to remediate the risks we identified.
- Project Dashboard. This easy-to-read table summarizes the level of effort applied to review the codebase and what was found. Did we identify systemic issues? Was every bug identified high severity? Get a visual indicator by glancing at this table.
- Engagement Goals. This section describes our scope, or, what we set out to do on the project. Did we seek to identify risks that you care about? You’ll find out by reviewing our own goals for the project.
- Coverage. This section discusses our ability to achieve our engagement goals within the constraints of the project. You’ll find information on specific contracts and techniques we used to review them here, as well as pointers for future review.
It’s no accident that these are the top four sections in all our reports.
See: The future of finance: Insights into tomorrow’s financial system
Daryl Hok, CertiK:
In the case of Formal Verification, the results are binary - when the mathematical model runs, it either identifies an example of the vulnerability in the code, or it does find anything, which means that it’s secure. As a result, our confidence is tied to the output of these results in these instances. When it is not feasible for Formal Verification to be applied, we utilize various tools to test the security, while also performing thorough manual examination.
Our confidence level is a collective consideration of the usage of commonly accepted best practices, patterns, libraries, as well as the quality of documentation and test cases. Rare, complex patterns typically reduce our confidence or require more customized review of whether the output is consistent with the intention. Overall, we work with projects to correct all critical vulnerabilities and antipatterns before publishing any passing audit scores.
Q3: What are the five most common things people miss in smart contracts that make them vulnerable?
Hubert Ritzdorf, ChainSecurity:
- Improper access control: granting access to unauthorized parties or denying access to authorized ones
- Front-running or back-running: No enforcement of execution order
- Improper input sanitization: insufficient filtering of untrusted user inputs
- Logical errors: logical flaws in the code due to faults in the code
- Numerical errors: rounding errors and incorrect arithmetic calculations
Dan Guido, Trail of Bits:
It has everything to do with development process rather than awareness, or not, of individual security issues.
- Developers are simply not using security tools. Ask any developer about unit tests, and they’ll say they won’t ship without 100% test coverage. Yet, many of those same people will have never used, or even tried to use, security testing or verification tools. Don’t leave it for the security consultants – nearly all the best tools are free.
- Developers still look at security as the last step before production. I’m writing this interview about a month ahead of DevCon, and my schedule has never been so busy. Developers should seek guidance earlier, including developer training, architectural review, and brief checkins over the lifetime of the project.
- Developers are writing too much code without a clear idea of its purpose or whether it is needed at all. Developers should start with a specification and then write the minimum amount of code to meet it. Our best-performing clients have documented security requirements in their spec. Complexity breeds insecurity; keep it simple.
- Developers rush to use bleeding-edge third-party dependencies that increase complexity and reduce the safety of their project. Examples include low-level optimizations, delegatecall proxy upgrades, ABIEncoderV2, and even the latest version of the Solidity compiler. Be judicious about inherited risks.
I don’t think there is a step five. You’ll be ahead of nearly every other project if you can do these four.
See: Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures Already Open to Retail Investors, COO Says
Daryl Hok, CertiK:
- Integer overflow/underflow
- Not updating the balance first before further operations. (reentrancy vulnerability)
- Writing loops without considering the gas cost. (DoS vulnerability)
- Lack of balance checking for value transfer operations.
- Lack of permission settings and permission check for public/external functions.
- Use of
block.timestampandblock.numberwithout considering their drawbacks (block.timestampcan be modified by miners; time between two consecutive block numbers is dynamic soblock.numberis not ideal for a stable time delta estimation).
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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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Toronto Centre Podcast: Industry and Regulatory Perspectives of the Distributed Ledger Technology ASX Implementation
The Toronto Centre | Podcast | Sep 28, 2019
In this podcast, Ilana Singer, Chair of the Securities Advisory Board, Toronto Centre interviews Katie McDermott General Manager for Equity Post-Trade Services, Australian Securities Exchange.
In this podcast, Ilana Singer, Chair of the Securities Advisory Board, Toronto Centre interviews Oliver Harvey, Chief Supervisory Officer, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
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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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Fintech Fridays EP37: Funding is Female with Jill Earthy
NCFA Canada | Sep 13, 2019
JOIN US ON A STORYTELLING JOURNEY EVERY FRIDAY.
Sep 13: Funding is Female with Jill Earthy EP37
GUEST: JILL EARTHY, Head of Female Funders (Linkedin)
HOST: Manseeb Khan, Fintech Friday's show host
BIO: Jill Earthy is an entrepreneurially minded leader who believes diversity drives innovation. As Head of Female Funders (powered by Highine BETA), she is empowering female leaders to become investors in early stage companies. Her background includes being an entrepreneur, supporting entrepreneurs in various leadership roles and working as Chief Growth Officer of FrontFundr, an online investment platform. She is a community leader and active mentor, currently serving on the national Board of Sustainable Development Technology Canada and as Board Chair of the Women’s Enterprise Centre in BC, and as Co-Chair of We for She. Jill was recently recognized by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion award as a Community Champion, by Business in Vancouver as an Influential Woman in Business and by WXN as one the Top 100 most powerful women in Canada in 2019.
About this episode:
On this episode of NCFA'S Fintech Fridays Podcast, our host Manseeb Khan sits down with Jill Earthy the Head of Female Funders. The talk about what the Angel Academy is, why female funders matter, and the holistic approach to innovation. Enjoy!
Subscribe and tune in each Friday to check out the latest movers and shakers in fintech.
Listen to more podcasts here: Season 1 | Season 2
Transcription of Interview
Intro: Welcome fintech Friday's a weekly podcast brought to you by the National Crowdfunding and Fintech Association of Canada and partners.Covering all things fintech block chain be AI and alternative finance.
Manseeb Khan : Hey everybody Manseeb Khan here. Thank you for tuning to another fantastical episode of the FinTech Friday podcast. I'm thinking of actually creating fantastical T-shirts because we should use this. Every single show as fantastical is not a word. Last episode I said I was part of the Oxford Dictionary actually might come highly considered actually trying to make it an actual word just for the sake of my introduction, sort of look like an idiot. But this week I'm super excited to have Jill. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Jill Earthy: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Manseeb Khan : Absolutely. Jill. Could you for the five or six people or actually for the five or six people that may not know who you are and what Female Funders is, could you just give us a little bit of introduction of your background and the amazing work that you're doing?
Jill Earthy: Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah Jill Earthy a program called Female Funders. And, you know, it's interesting, you come out, you ask about my background. And I've always been passionate. I think, like many of your audience members, about disrupting and changing things and looking at things in new ways. And certainly, my career has, as you know, shows that path. So, as an entrepreneur, then leading several organizations, supporting entrepreneurs, or working as chief growth officer at a fintech company, Front Funder online investment platform, creating new ways for entrepreneurs to access capital and broadening the reach for investors. And then, you know, it all circles. It's funny how it’s kind of all kind of comes full circle. So Female Funders is a program focused on female leaders, primarily senior leaders in corporations and technology companies or seasoned entrepreneurs themselves who have a curiosity about investing in early stage companies, but maybe haven't had exposure to it in the past or aren't sure where to start. And so, our goal is really to demystify the process, make it easy and make it accessible and increase the number of women participating as investors.
Manseeb Khan : That's incredible. So, you guys created this new kind of academy called the Angel Academy. Could you talk a little bit more about that and how I can get of all people can get involved and just essentially what the Angel Academy is?
Jill Earthy: Yes. So, the Angel Academy is our core education program and we work with cohorts of leaders from across North America. And that's really neat to right because they're coming at it from a variety of different backgrounds perspectives. It's primarily, primarily women. And the program runs over. The Angel Academy program runs over eight weeks. It's virtually run. We have four online learning modules which are self-directed full of all sorts of great content and articles and links. And thanks to podcasts, we'll have to add this one and other content. But the most important part is we host office hours where we bring in investor mentors. And those investor mentors are men and women, incredible venture capital partners or experienced angel investors to share their experience and expertise and provides an active learning opportunity for us to all work together. So that happens over an eight-week period. And then we have an apprenticeship component where we match each of our participants with a mentor, an experienced investor. And that's super powerful as they're starting their investing journey. I'm starting to identify companies that they're interested in and having that guide to ask questions I've learned from as they're getting ready to write the first check. So, the bulk of the program is it's a really over eight weeks of education, four-month apprenticeship, so a six month program. And then we wrap a whole number of other things around that, including investment learning labs, bringing different cohort participants together and an in-person event as well.
Manseeb Khan : That's incredible. That sounds like a lot of fun and like very important work because like becoming an investor or, you know, if the audience wants to just quickly, maybe follow along, just I kind of read a little bit about it having a guide or just having somebody kind of walk you through. You know, you have enough capital to start investing in a couple of companies that you definitely have your eye on. Having a mentor or having a system, having a more or less academy to kind of teach you the ins and outs of the realm of investing. It's super important, super crucial, because every single day we have the opportunity to keep more and more investors right now having academies and having institutions to create more and more smart investors. That's an interesting, incredible and it's super exciting.
Jill Earthy: Well, I think you're absolutely right. Because I think we should make sure that it's clear that these are high risk investments. This is an asset class in that that is high risk in early stage companies. Right. You're taking a you're taking a huge risk, but also it could result in a big opportunity as well. But you're absolutely right. Like having that support, expertise, know, sharing, sharing experiences. You know, we know the importance of having diverse perspectives to make better decisions. And we're hoping that mitigates some of the risk greater to result in greater outcomes for all.
Manseeb Khan : So why are female fund funders and backers important? Very important, especially when it comes to funding. I mean, this is a topic that I've very briefly touched on the second episode of this podcast but haven't really had the chance to really go in depth. So, could you just talk a little bit about why Female Funders and backers are very important, especially in the fintech space?
Jill Earthy: Well, you look at just, you know, our economy as a whole and the huge, huge opportunity that we have. So Female Funders in partnership with Highline data released a report earlier this year that looked at some of the numbers and I was fine. Obviously, numbers are great. They tell a story for factual. So just as an example, you know, in Canada last year, 14 percent of angel investors were women, 17 percent of angel investors this year were women. So, we're seeing a shift, which is great, but there's a huge opportunity to increase that. You know, you look at the diversity of those making investment decisions within venture capital firms. And, you know, this is relevant as the growth of the fintech ecosystem continues. But now 15 percent of venture capital leaders are women and 8 percent are partners. Right. So, we look at that as like, wow, OK. We have an opportunity here right now. How do we unlock some of their capital? Because we know that the growth of female leaders is continuing. We have incredible resources. And so how do we how do we connect those dots? I think one of the key challenges that women we don't often identify as investors, you know, certainly as champions and mentors and advisors. And so how do we just connect those dots? And by doing so will unlock new capital, which benefits everybody. Because, again, by having those diverse perspectives making decisions, we'll see a broader range of companies from seed funding, new models. And then everyone benefits.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah. No, I absolutely agree through. And in a sense of like creating you said something interesting creating more like I guess more or less like diversity and a sense of like, hey, you know, having more female funders, having more female investors, that's just going to, you know, just fast forward innovation in any space. Right. Not a fintech, but any realm of investing, having new ideas, having new concepts, having new models. It just it's a win for.
Jill Earthy: 100 percent, 100 percent. You think about I mean, we're focused primarily on gender diversity, although I would also say very much within our cohorts of women, we have incredible cultural and ethnic diversity and certainly a lot of industry experience diversity, which is powerful, too. But our goal is, is not to continue to run this. This program focused on women. We'd rather not, but. Absolutely. We do have some catching up to do so. So, there's huge power. And that's certainly why we love these conversations and having so many incredible male champions involved in our in our program. And we're just trying to bridge the gap, bring these great women into the ecosystem.
Manseeb Khan : So, yeah. So, you know, I mean, you don't want to be running this program for like six years and be like, OK, well, now we're a two out of five females. Our investors well crap. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah. Could you talk a little bit more? So, you did briefly mention you guys focus on gender diversity and ethnic diversity. You could talk a little bit how you guys are going about that and just some of the initiatives you have in place to further that mission.
Jill Earthy: Yeah. Yeah. So, with our core program in Angel Academy, we know the types of people that are participating in the program tend to come from three, three groups, I guess primarily so senior leaders within large corporations. I mean, you indicated the need for corporations to continually innovate to That's, especially the financial institutions. Well, every company, you know, oil and gas, you know, there's every sector need to continually innovate. And so, we have a lot of senior leaders within those companies are going, OK, we need to innovate, but we need to do that. We need to understand the venture ecosystem and we need to understand how these startups operate. And so, we're seeing more and more of those types of leaders come into our program for professional development and better understanding and direct connection to the ecosystem, but also for personal interest, of course, as they look to potentially invest to as they become more comfortable and familiar. And then the other group is those in those technology companies. When you think about, you know, even thinking of some of the fintech companies across North America, where they've grown to a point and they're leaders within those companies maybe who didn't start at the very beginning, but who have seen this company grow and are likely to second to be involved with those companies from the from the start. So, they're interested in coming into this program. And then the third group is are those seasoned entrepreneurs who have built businesses to a point where they may still be involved, but they're not as involved in the day to day and can actually step up. And participate on the other side of the table. Or maybe have exited and want to get one. You complete the circle.
Manseeb Khan : And of course, under. And give back. Right. Because one of the core things that you kind of learn, especially in entrepreneurship, is it's great that you know, it's good that you're learning. Creating a network, but also giving back to network is always very crucial. It's very clear that it's the it's the full circle. Right.
Jill Earthy: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No. It's amazing. And even you look at, you know, there's so many great leaders in fintech now, too. I mean, some of our partners are you know, you look at someone like Lisa Shields of Flies Van and Natalie Cartwright, and there's just so many great. Yeah, great, great leaders, men, and women. But there are some real opportunities to continue to enhance the tech sector.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah. No, absolutely. I like hopefully, you know, not in the fintech sector, but other sectors as well. So, this is, again, very, very exciting, exciting work. So, could you talk about the current challenges that female founders and funders face? Yeah. Top five or even top 10.
Jill Earthy: So, I think there's a couple of key ones and I like to think about. So, there's a lot of a lot of articles and things that talk about women being risk adverse. I think that holds true on women entrepreneurs’ access and capital as well as women investors. I much prefer the term risk astute, meaning that women tend to be more methodical in their approach, especially when it comes to accessing, financing, or writing checks. Want to really understand the process, demystify it, understand the lingo. You want to talk to a number of people. That's not a wrong way of doing things. It's just a different way of doing things. And so, I think by embracing that, there's a lot more opportunities. And we're seeing the data now show, too, that, you know, women entrepreneurs they're building companies in different ways and accessing different buckets of financing and putting this together. The results are much stronger. They're actually using less capital to grow more and focused on revenue growth. And that's pretty powerful. I see that as an opportunity. It's just a different model because often we you know, certainly in the venture ecosystem, success is often based on how much money you've raised. And so, you know, which is one benchmark. But I don't think that's the that that should be the only one to benchmark. No, not like I personally would much rather invest in companies that are focused on revenue growth and customer acquisitions. But that that's different anyways. And then so and on the investor side, too, it's the same thing. Women are less likely to just immediately write a check. Really. They want to do more research, dig it, dig in deeper, understand that more. Not a bad thing, just a different path. And therefore, the process takes a little bit longer and the numbers aren't quite as high. Also tend to write smaller checks versus larger checks, more maybe more smaller checks. But again, just different approaches. So, I'm not sure yet. There's lots of data around that challenges. I think sometimes it's also around access to networks and women are getting better at doing that. But we have to invite them in sometimes. That's another common challenge. Like often.
Manseeb Khan : Are they? So, when you mean access to networks, are they just a little adverse to joining? These said networks are like what is like what is the challenge specifically of them having access to these networks.
Jill Earthy: Yeah, well, you think about it and I'll just use angel groups as an example. Right. Typically, haven't been very many women involved in those groups. And so, you know, but that's where the deals happen or in other groupings like that, right. Or no. I have a lot of friends to get a call from their friend saying, hey, do you want to go in on this deal with me? And women are just for whatever reason, you know, it's not. Not necessarily that they've been excluded, maybe just not completely invited, or haven't put their hand up to be invited. Right. There are multiple factors, but I think we need to. Yeah. So. So that's why you're seeing an increase in the number of women's networks. And I don't believe just in women only networks. But I think that's a starting point to get and start to have those conversations and create access. And we'll see that. And now. As I said, our goal is to make sure we're just growing the networks overall. So, people are connecting and identifying deals and opportunities together and collaborating on those. So that's just a shift right there where a lot of all know the term old boys’ networks and where we're trying to shift that.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah, I know for sure. I mean, definitely having a focus on first like an equality, it comes to both parties and then starting to network. I think that's definitely one of the better approaches when it comes towards that. I guess I guess I'm going to I'm going to try to throw it to you. Is there something that we should be aware of when it comes to Female Funders and female founders? Is it something that we, the audience can kind of do to help is? Yeah. Is there a way that we can kind of hope or is it ways that we're just not aware of that we can help?
Jill Earthy: Well, I think what you're doing right now is awesome because it's really often about just having the conversation right and putting it out there and hearing people's stories. So I think for all of us, it is about just getting engaging with more people, reaching out, talking about it, you know, and certainly as it pertains to Female Funders, you know, where I get excited and most passionate about it is, you know, I'll just start talking about at the dinner table or a dinner party. Right. About an opportunity to participate in investing in this new venture. And, you know, it's amazing when you just start to open up the conversation that how people are like, oh, that sounds interesting. I thought that I had to write a million-dollar check to and not look like I look like that. And I think that's for young people. I think that's for women. I think that's for everybody. Is just a start to have the conversation about finance and about investing, you know, whether you have the capacity to do it now or in the future? It's starting to just think about that differently and starting to plan because again, these are high risk investments. So, you need to plan you need your traditional investments, for sure, but starting to plan a small portion. Your first check is small or maybe it's five thousand dollars. Or through something like Front Funder , it's a thousand dollars or whatever it is. That being the thought of being coordinated and collaborating with others. Have more experience or all are all critical.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah, no, I agree. I mean that's kind of what kick this. That that's just one of the reasons why I actually invited you to come on the show. It's because of, you know, we're thinking of creating this new initiative where we kind of focus on female founders, female funders, and kind of sharing the stories. I know when we had when I had Sue Britain on, one of the fears was that like, hey, especially in finance is an old boys club. Slowly but surely, you're seeing some of that remnants bleed into fintech. And that's one of the biggest worries of OK. I definitely don't want that to happen here because the because the whole purpose of fintech is to be different. Right. From the traditional sense. Right. So having amazing people like you and some of the other guys that we have lined up should be a really interesting set of conversations that we're going to have a, you know, talk about the challenges, talk about opportunities, how we can how what we can do and just, you know, hope furthering long the conversation of like, hey, you know what? There should be an even playing field for anybody and everybody. That's. That's. There's no there's no it is no budge on that, there's no leeway. Right.
Jill Earthy: Yeah, no, absolutely. And there's so many more opportunities now, right? I mean, you look at some of the new fintech initiatives or programs and there's. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the point of it is to make it a bit more inclusive. Right. Because it's more transparent. A lot of the platform are more accessible and so there's things are really exciting opportunity.
Manseeb Khan : Well, yes. And now like a TV to switch gears a little like when it comes to investing. And now you have you have the chance of crowdfunding and, you know, getting money from people. They want to see that you're doing amazing work. They want to see that like, hey, like, what are what are some of the initiatives that they're that they're doing? What are the social causes that they're involved in? Right. Cause if you're putting if I'm putting my money towards something beautiful, a regular Joe Schmo like me or an actual seasoned investor, they want to see that you guys are doing something different, something that, you know, having female funders or even having a team of like really kickass female executives matters. That works.
Jill Earthy: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Chuckling Yeah. There are so many new incredible opportunities for people to participate. And even as you said, like even starting small, I mean, my first my first cheque was five thousand dollars for my RSP, which I didn't realize I could do. And was eligible for 30 percent tax credit. This was four or five years ago. And it's just those things where nobody talks about those and you're like, wow, that's amazing. And I get to participate. And it's not all opportunities are like That's. There are obviously much higher minimums and sometimes there's much lower minimums and there's pros and cons. And sometimes you want a whole mix of all those things. Course. Yeah, but the point is there's a lot there, a lot more opportunities out there everywhere and a lot more people that can now engage and participate in the right way.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah, no, I absolutely go through. This is really exciting things. So, before I wrap this up, I'm going to throw it to you. Is there anything else that the audience should be aware of when it comes to the great work that you're doing?
Jill Earthy: Thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's just. Just keep talking about it. I mean, we run our Angel Academy program twice a year, bringing together these leaders through a virtual environment. Our next programs and we run in the fall, the end of October and one in the spring. So, if you know anybody who's interested and love to hear from them or any questions. We also talked to founders all the time and help to direct them to the right resources. So, we're happy to support there. But I just think it's such you know, it's an exciting ecosystem at the moment, right. Technology fintech, you know, everybody's talking about it. Everybody has a role to play in it. So, it's just figuring out what your role is and how you how you want to engage. But it's amazing. And I keep telling these great stories. Yeah.
Manseeb Khan : No, I mean, definitely I'm going to flip to you to you if there is any amazing funders or founders that you think wish that I should personally talk to you just to come on the show. By all means, it's an open invitation for anybody. I mean, the more conversation, the more stories I can share, the more exciting my job becomes, right?
Jill Earthy: Yeah. And the more impact we can have.
Manseeb Khan : Absolutely. Absolutely. Joe, before we wrap this up, are there a couple of golden nuggets that you want the audience to kind of go home with and just, you know, a year from now? Oh, yeah. Jill told me That's. Yeah, I know that that makes total sense. So, what are some golden nuggets that you want to leave the audience with?
Jill Earthy: That's a lot of pressure. Yeah. I think I think a key thing is just, you know, I think sometimes we get overwhelmed. There's so much noise, there's so much information. You know, you are reading information online and you hear about the technology in an ecosystem and innovation and what does it all mean. And I think we each have a role to play in it. And so I think it's identifying, you know, our own strengths, our own interests, our own goals, whether that's as an art partner and how we want to engage and participate and make a difference as an investor, you know, putting our hand up and reaching out to learn more about what that can look like, because it can look a lot of different ways and engage that way or just as an advisor or a mentor supporter, because we all have strengths and skills and expertise. But I think just the power of that and continuing to talk about innovation as a whole as a holistic approach. It's pretty exciting time, but it can get a bit overwhelming. So just keep me be clear on your mission and connect with others who align with
Manseeb Khan : That's incredible. Jill, thank you so much for sitting down today. Super excited to have you back on the show and super excited to have any of the amazing people a part of your network on the show.
Jill Earthy: Thank you.
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Nov 12, 2026 Crypto market cap is calculated by multiplying an asset's reference price by its circulating supply. A token priced at $2 with 50 million units circulating has a market cap of $100 million. The calculation estimates the value of that supply at the reference price; it does not total the money investors deposited. To understand a change in the ranking, examine both inputs and the provider's definitions. A larger number can result from price changes, supply changes, or revised reporting. Establish what the two inputs represent The arithmetic is simple, but neither input is self-explanatory. “Price” may be a reference assembled from selected trading pairs and venues, rather than the last transaction on the exchange you use. A provider may exclude observations or convert quote currencies. Two services can publish different estimates because their source selection and methods differ. Circulating supply is an estimate of units treated as available in the market under a provider's rules. It may differ from the number minted, the total recorded by a contract, or the maximum permitted under a protocol's current design. Locked balances, treasury allocations, burns, and scheduled releases require interpretation. A transparent methodology matters because identical arithmetic can still use ...
November 11, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Risk Compliance And Regtech Financial firms are putting AI agents into production well before giving them broad financial authority. That creates time to set identity, permissions and transaction controls before autonomous execution becomes common. On November 11, 2026, Bank of England Financial Policy Committee external member Jonathan Hall used his final FPC speech to examine what happens when AI agents get more authority inside financial firms. A Bank of England and FCA survey of 196 firms found that 80% already deploy AI agents and another 14% plan to within 12 months. Only 2% reported agents with broad autonomy, and none of those were in trading and payments. Finance is adopting agents quickly, but firms are still keeping people and hard limits around the decisions that can change money, positions or customer outcomes. AI Agents Are In Finance But They Are Not Trading Alone The 2026 Bank of England and FCA survey separates four levels of authority: Decision support lets an agent recommend an action while a person decides and executes it. Constrained execution lets the agent act inside preset rules. Conditional autonomy ...
November 10, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Entrepreneurs Startups Small Businesses, Equity Crowdfunding And Alternative Funding A small group of large rounds is carrying Canadian venture totals while deal count and growth stage financing remain well below recent norms. On November 10, 2026, the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association published its Q3 2026 venture capital report. Canadian companies raised $4.3 billion across 397 deals through September, only 1% less capital than a year earlier. But 23 rounds of $50 million or more represented just 6% of disclosed deals and absorbed 58% of all venture capital invested. Deal count has also fallen every year since 2021. The national total is holding up far better than the number of companies getting financed. Six Big Rounds Carried 59% Of Q3 Venture Capital Q3 produced $1.35 billion across 129 deals. Capital was 1% higher than Q2, but deal count fell 15%. Six rounds above $50 million accounted for $793 million, or 59% of the quarter’s capital. That's a decent quarter for the companies that closed those rounds, but a weak quarter for everyone else. Mega rounds above $50 million totalled $2.5 billion across 23 transactions ...
November 11, 2026 | NCFA Story Intelligence | Competition And Market Structure, Wealthtech Investing And Trading, Regulation And Policy Canada is cutting bank fees and switching barriers after years of weak competition, high concentration and poor productivity. On November 7, 2026, the federal government proposed something Canadian investors have complained about for years. Banks would no longer be allowed to charge most investment account transfer fees, which typically cost about $150 per account. Ottawa also wants clearer transfer information and tighter timelines for moving investments to another financial institution. The fee matters because leaving can already be slow and frustrating. Receiving firms often reimburse the outgoing charge to win the account. That means a fee collected by the institution losing the customer can become part of the acquisition cost for the institution trying to win that customer. Canada's six largest banks hold roughly 93% of banking assets. The Competition Bureau was warning about barriers facing fintech competitors in 2017. Ottawa began reviewing open banking in 2018. A federal advisory committee later recommended an operating system by January 2023 and warned that government should not delay. January 2023 came and went. Real Time Rail also slipped years beyond its first expected ...
November 10, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Regulation And Policy Funds, Collateral And Settlement Lead Canada’s Near Term Tokenization Opportunity On November 10, 2026, the Canadian Securities Administrators published its Project Tokenization Phase 1 findings, setting out where Canadian market participants see the strongest commercial opportunities for tokenization and what regulators plan to test next. The report draws on 233 organizations, 21 bilateral meetings and 80 survey responses, along with workshops attended by 281 people in Calgary and 491 in Toronto. Participants put investment funds, private assets, collateral, treasury and settlement infrastructure ahead of public stocks as the strongest near term opportunities. The report also cuts through one of tokenization’s biggest sales pitches. Blockchain can change how an asset is recorded, transferred or settled, but it doesn't automatically create liquidity, investor demand, broader eligibility or stronger ownership rights. Those outcomes still depend on the product, market, legal structure and infrastructure around it. The CSA now plans to take specific projects into Phase 2 through a 120 day public call for proposals. Firms may be able to use existing regulatory processes, tailored regulatory treatment or bounded testing in a ...
Nov 11, 2026 A positive work environment is key for any team that wants to succeed. Team morale is crucial for productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction. Engaging in activities that lift spirits and strengthen connections can lead to great results. Creating a positive team environment requires creativity, engagement, and some fun. Each activity can strengthen connections, boost motivation, and improve workplace dynamics. When teams focus on strategies to boost morale, they work toward shared success. These activities can lead to lasting memories and help build a stronger team culture. Here are some fun strategies to help improve your team's morale and make the workplace livelier. Fun at the Arcade Visiting an arcade spot is a great way to enjoy time together and build teamwork. Imagine your team facing challenges with various games. Whether it's racing or playing team games, the arcade encourages friendly competition and bonding. These fun experiences can help reduce stress and improve relationships among coworkers. Arcades offer many options to suit diverse interests and skill levels. The lively atmosphere invites everyone to relax and take a break from their daily tasks. Shared laughter and enjoyment can lead to better communication and teamwork when you return to the ...
November 10, 2026 | Market Activity | Fundraising, Investing, Trading, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health A Brokerage Race Beyond $0 Commissions On November 10, 2026, Webull Canada added Nasdaq Basic Canada, giving clients free real time Level 1 quote and trade data across Canadian listed equities. The feed provides best bid, best offer and last sale information for stocks listed on the TSX, TSX Venture, CSE and Cboe Canada. Nasdaq says its consolidated feed can reduce Level 1 market data costs by more than 60% compared with traditional Canadian data packages. Webull isn't first to give Canadian investors free real time information. The more interesting story is how quickly another paid feature is becoming part of the basic brokerage account. Wealthsimple helped normalize $0 trading in 2019, Questrade followed in 2025 and Webull dropped its own commissions in April 2026. With the headline trading fee largely gone, brokers now need other reasons for investors to move money and keep it on the platform. Who Led Canada’s Race To $0 Trading And Free Market Data Wealthsimple Trade launched nationally on March 13, 2019 with $0 commissions on Canadian and U.S. stocks and ETFs. Questrade removed commissions on listed stocks and ETFs ...
November 10, 2026 | Market Activity | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding A Toronto Fintech Riskfuel Analytics Brings AI Pricing Into BBVA’s Global Markets Workflow On November 10, 2026, BBVA deployed Riskfuel Analytics' neural pricing technology inside the pre-trade structuring workflow for autocallable products on its ePricer platform. Riskfuel is a Toronto fintech founded in 2019 that builds AI models for derivatives pricing. BBVA is a global bank with a large corporate and investment banking business. The deployment puts Canadian built AI directly into the calculations used to design complex structured products at a major global bank. Riskfuel's model is trained on BBVA's own pricing engine and uses more than 4,000 market and product inputs. The company says the surrogate was tested against more than 100,000 trades and can evaluate thousands of candidate structures in under a minute. BBVA had already added AI generated investment ideas to ePricer in September. Riskfuel goes further into the workflow by speeding up the numerical pricing work while BBVA's own model remains the reference. How Riskfuel Speeds Up BBVA's Autocallable Pricing Autocallables can depend on volatility, interest rates, dividends, maturity, coupon levels and several barrier conditions. Autocallables are structured investments ...
Fintech Fridays EP36: Techfins with Michael King, Lansdowne Chair in Finance, Gustavson School of Business at UVic
NCFA Canada | Aug 9, 2019
JOIN US ON A STORYTELLING JOURNEY EVERY FRIDAY.
Aug 23: Techfins with Michael R. King, PhD CFA EP36
GUEST: MICHAEL R. KING, PhD CFA, Lansdowne Chair in Finance, Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, (Linkedin)
HOST: Manseeb Khan, Fintech Friday's show host
BIO: Professor Michael R. King is the Lansdowne Chair in Finance at University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business. Prior to joining UVic, he held the Tangerine Chair in Finance at Western University’s Ivey Business School (2011-2019), where he co-founded Canada’s first FinTech research centre (the Scotiabank Digital Banking Lab). Before joining academia, he worked in investment banking in Zurich, New York and London from 1990-1998 (Credit Suisse, RBC Dominion Securities) and central banking in Ottawa and Basel from 2001-2011 (Bank of Canada, Bank for International Settlements). Michael completed his PhD at the London School of Economics in 2001 and his CFA designation in 1999. He has taught finance to undergraduates, MBAs and executives. His research focuses on FinTech, banking, international financial markets, and corporate finance.
About this episode: On this episode of NCFA's Fintech Friday's Podcast, our host Manseeb Khan sits down with Prof. Michael R. King PhD CFA, Lansdowne Chair in Finance at University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business. They chat about transformational fintech, big tech vs techfins and fintech 3.0. Enjoy!
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Listen to more podcasts here: Season 1 | Season 2
Transcription of Interview
Intro: Welcome fintech Friday's a weekly podcast brought to you by the National Crowdfunding and Fintech Association of Canada and partners.Covering all things fintech block chain be AI and alternative finance.
Manseeb Khan : Hey Everybody Manseeb Khan here. Thank you for tuning in to another fantastical episode of the FinTech Friday podcast, Fantastical is now in the Oxford Dictionary. It's not. I'm just kidding. I really want it to be. I mean, fantastical. I love using that word. But this week, today, I'm very, very thrilled. I've been sent a message to all my friends of how excited I am for this episode. I got Michael King. Michael, thank you so much for sitting down today.
Michael King : It's great to be with you, man. Thank you for having me on FinTech Friday.
Manseeb Khan : Awesome. Michael, could you just for the five or six people that may not know who you are and may not share the same level excitement that I am currently sharing? Could you tell us a little bit of who you are, a little bit of your background?
Michael King : Okay, great. Yeah. So, I'm a university professor out on the West Coast at the University of Victoria has kept this in school business. This is my third act when it comes to my career. I did my first decade was in investment banking and trading in New York, London, where I got to see what things look like on the private sector side. My second act in the in the 1990s was in the 2000s was with US Central Banking with the Bank of Canada in Ottawa and also with Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland, where I was there during the financial crisis and got to see how regulators look at the world. And since 2011, I've been in academia. I was at Ivey School of Business at Western University, and back in 2016, I was approached to co-found a fintech research center with my colleague J.P. Varian. And we've been following fintech avidly since then. And then I'm actually in the process of writing a book on fintech called FinTech Explain, which should be out later in the year.
Manseeb Khan : That's incredible of why I can't wait for that book. So, could you talk a little bit more of the traditional versus the transformational views of fintech?
Michael King : Yeah, I mean, I as somebody who's been coming at this from the banking side, from the financial services side for a long time, I shared the same skepticism as most people did that fintech is just the application of technology to financial services. Banks have been doing that for decades, ever since they made the transatlantic cable, the telex, the fax machine and the A.T.M. So, what's so new about fintech? And it really started to dawn on me, you know, as I was writing my book, that there's really two views about fintech. And there's one view that it's evolutionary. And this is the sort of traditional view that we're using technology to reduce costs and to automate back office and digitize a lot of processes. But there's also a transformational view, and that's more of a viewing fintech as a reason, a revolution that's coming out of, you know, the application of technologies in many different industries, consumer products and cars, automation and that back to fintech is really redesigning or reimagining financial services as part of a larger product offering. So, the traditional view is very product centric. We're going to offer customers a loan. We're going to offer them a wealth management product. We're going to offer them a means of payment. And that's kind of the way that traditional financial intermediaries are set up. If you look at the big banks there, they have divisions with names like capital markets, personal and commercial banking, and insurance. And people in those divisions tend to have titles that sort of say what they do. Mostly focused on the product. But when you start looking at a number of these new marketplaces, these multi sided platforms that are being set up and in particular by a techfins like Ali Baba and Tencent you see that they're looking at this really from the customer's point of view. And it's very customer centric. They're saying, what does the customer want? What's their pain point and how can we provide them with, you know, a great experience? And that great experience may be social networking and maybe ecommerce and maybe gaming, but there is typically a financial service product that makes its way in there somewhere. And so financial service products are being bundled along with other customer products in a new and imaginative ways. And that's where I think the real revolution, or the transformation is taking place right now.
Manseeb Khan : I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I'm just explaining what fintech is. A lot of you know, a lot of people may think, oh, yeah, it's a very product focused thing. This is just okay, you know what? We are just going to digitize the loans. We're just going to digitize mortgages. We're just going to digitize X, Y and Z payment method. It's very product focused and a kind of I mean, it's a little heartbreaking because. FinTech, it's so much more, right? It has the capability. I mean, you've been hit on the fact that you're having tech companies like Apple that recently released a credit card. These guys are very customer focused, customer centric, right. Because there is around. We've recently had on the on the show a stat that there's 2 billion people that are under serviced and you're having fintech companies come in and service is under serviced, under banked individuals. Its very customer focused, is very good. What do the people want? How do we build a product around the people? Not a product for the people or like a product that the people who just give it to them.
Michael King : Yeah, I'm. And Manseeb. I don't want to say that all. But these two types, traditional and transformational fintech, they kind of co-exist in this ecosystem. And you look at some of the startups that we have here in Canada and abroad and really, they're focused entirely on the customer and on how to make that experience great and simple and less costly. Or as he pointed out there, they're trying to serve customers that have been ignored or underserved or under banked. And that's true both in the United States but also in emerging markets, places like Kenya and Africa. But there are a lot of fintech that are basically just trying to automate what's already out there. And you know, I would say that There is a twist on the existing business model. But, you know, if you look at balance sheet lending online, that's pretty much the same thing as what banks have been doing for a long time. And if you look at electronic banking, well, we've had digital banks since the 1990s, and that's not particularly new. It just may be a better experience that they're getting now.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah. No, I couldn't agree with you more. So, could you talk a little bit more of the main differences between fintech and techfin and essentially like our data? And like, you know, just like the contrast and I guess the similarities between the two?
Michael King : Yeah. This term tech fin, actually, I only heard it about a couple of years ago and I got curious about it. I wondered where does this term come from? They've basically just taken fintech and turned it on its head. It turns out that it was first used by Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, back in 2016, to describe his company Ant financial. Where Ant financial is the formerly known as Ali Pay and was spun off prior to Ali Baba's IPO on the US stock market in 2014. And he said Tech fins are basically technology companies that are trying to provide financial services to underserved customers. Jack Ma, he kind of is critical of the existing financial system, probably looking at his home market in China, which was very undeveloped. It's all state-owned banks and state-owned enterprises. So, keeping that in mind, he said, you know, a lot of these fin techs are simply using technology to make a profit by selling financial products and services to customers. And tech fins are really trying to help people that are under banks, whether it's small businesses, whether it's in emerging market countries or whether it's some individual customers. Now, tech fins are really that term is really stuck for Ali Baba and Tencent in their financial service arms. When we go to North America, we tend to use the term big tech, where big tech is Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The big U.S. headquartered technology companies that are also moving into financial services slowly but surely.
Manseeb Khan : So, should fintech’s be afraid of the big tech companies and the techfin companies, or should they see this more as an opportunity of, you know what? Hey, now that we have these bigger tech players coming into our space, should we start creating partnerships or should we be a little bit more averse to them?
Michael King : Yeah, you've hit it. You've hit it right on the nail there because it can be these tech fans in the big tech are a real threat to incumbent financial intermediaries such as banks, insurance companies, wealth management. But they could also be an enormous opportunity for fintech who are partnering with them. I know on one-year earlier podcasts back in September, you had Paul Schulte also talking about Alibaba, Tencent, and Wal-Mart in India. And what we've seen there is that these companies are really opened to partnering and helping other fintech to basically provide their customers, their users and their ecosystem with the products and services that they need. So, I would say that tech fins and big tech do represent a threat to incumbents, but I think they also represent an opportunity for partnerships with startups in fintech.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah, I mean, but if you have the financial incumbents adopting the mindset of like, you know what? Hey, let's start transitioning from the traditional view of how we see fintech into something transformative. Then like the partnerships are just going to be astounding, right? Like if we have just one of one of the big five banks partnering up with Apple, you know what? We're to start backing Apple into the credit services or just whatever the case may be, that in and of itself, they'll be very, very interesting to see.
Michael King : Yeah, it's become a really fascinating landscape because there's a lot of things going on. And as you point out, some of the big banks are really forward looking. They've really caught on to this kind of customer centric point of view. I'd highlight Royal Bank of Canada at home here at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs in the United States. They those big players are recognizing that these partnerships with these fintech can really deliver a great experience to their customers. It can give them an edge over other incumbents. And it's the way of the future. In particular, with the development of these marketplaces. No bank is going to want to be on a dropdown list on Amazon when it comes to offering a mortgage or a loan. But that seems to be at least from looking at what's happening in China in some other countries. That seems to be the direction we're going, where it's coming very. You know, banks backed loans and mortgages were very commodities, financial products. And it's going to become even worse if these ecosystems come between a bank and their customer. So, some of these banks are developing these marketplaces themselves or they're partnering up. And that's, I think, the way to go. And you mentioned Goldman Sachs is actually backing Apple with their credit card yet to be launched. It was announced with a lot of fanfare, but it's not out there yet, but it's a retail credit card. MasterCard and Apple have said specifically, we do not want your data. And Goldman Sachs has said data privacy is going to be key to our customer offering. Right. They seem to be taking a swipe at Facebook and at Google and their ad-based business models. So just showing that you can't just lump all these big players, big tech, and thin tech fans together into the same bucket. They're really pursuing different strategies.
Manseeb Khan : Of course. I mean, because now you're seeing how the consumer and just, I mean, not only our audience, but just like everybody else is starting to realize how important their data is and how powerful their data is. Right now, you're seeing how there's been this really big push for digital identity and digital privacy of just kind of, you know, hey, I should be able to pick and choose what and how much of what of information I get to give out to companies like Facebook, to Apple or to any of the companies. And the fact that Apple is taking a swipe and taking a stance of like, hey, you know what, we don't really, we don't want your data. We want you to be in charge of your data as much as you can. And that's kind of helping build that, I guess, like future brand equity.
Michael King : Yeah. Ownership of data is going to be central to competitive advantage of any kind of financial service company or non-financial service company. But customer trust in how you treat their data. Maintaining privacy and ensuring that you're a good custodian of that data is also going to be central to claim financial services. So, I think most people agree that more data that the competitive advantage, the big tech companies like Facebook and Apple is really they get to see so much of what customers are doing online and understand them in better ways. Amazon is certainly using that data to try and understand, hey, what kind of new products do our customers want? And it can be a great benefit to consumers if by understanding this data they can provide you with a product that you didn't even know you wanted. But on the flip side, if they go around and they sell it and they monetize it and there is a cyber hack or breach where your identity is stolen. That is a nightmare scenario and one that consumers, regulators, everyone is focused on.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah, that's definitely a very scary, scary situation of getting all of our data hacked. I mean, I mean, speaking of Apple and just the big five banks, this is slowly but surely moving towards open banking, which has been a theme on the show time and time again. This is like I'm a huge advocate for it. I mean like open banking it's a very bright future. It's a very exciting future, because now with Apple announcing their credit card, that's just one of the first of many steps towards, hey, you're looking for a mortgage. Well, you know what? Hey. Amazon actually has amazing rates on mortgages in Waterloo. So, once you get a mortgage to Amazon, right. You don't have to go through TD or RBC or anybody else. You can get it from a tech company. Right. Like in the next five to 10 to 15 years, getting a car loan from Facebook is not going to sound as crazy as it is today.
Michael King : Yeah. And I think open banking is really it's coming. It's coming to Canada. It's already presents in Europe, the U.K. and in some ways, it's coming into the United States. But it's inevitable that we are going to own our own data and have control over it. And that whether it's held by a bank, whether it's helped by a social media company or by a utility, could be your Rogers could be your phone company. That data belongs to us. And we should be paid or at least given service for the access to that data. I think that forward looking companies are now recognizing that they've been able to use it as without compensating us for it. But at the end of the day, competition in the marketplace is going to lead people to focus on the ones that are best custodians and provide the best service. And I think bringing incisive that of that data is going to help consumers. You mentioned also that, you know, Apple is trying to really distance itself from that ad base, business models of Google and Facebook. It's going to be interesting to see how they have to pivot to address all the concerns that consumers have, although a lot of people seem to be favoring convenience over security when it comes to those to their data. By the way, a big shot up for one of Canada's best fintech companies, secure key. I think they in the realm of digital identity, are doing a fantastic job and really leading in terms of looking after consumers.
Manseeb Khan : Awesome shout out to secure key, you did mention a really good point of view. You know, it should be really interesting to see how Apple is going to pivot. I mean, you know, convenience over security. I mean, that's just kind of what that has been the norm for. I mean, forever now. Right. No one like when it comes to terms of services, everyone really laughs because no one's really reading them. I don't I'm in this space and I don't I don't either. I don't like any app that I download. I'm like, screw it. I'll be fine. I'm not going to whatever. I'll be OK. I'll have I'm not that crazy yet. But, you know, it should be really interesting to see how in the future companies not only like Apple, but all the big tech companies, how are they going to monetize or what does this pivot going to kind of look like? Because right now, the landscape has been very like ad focus. AD revenue focus. Right. That's what you're seeing. That's how traditional media has been. When it comes to TV and newspapers. That's now how you're seeing Facebook and Instagram and all these other social media platforms make money. It should be really interesting to see how the heck are these companies going to make money in the future if they're not selling me ads?
Michael King : Yeah. And I think Facebook, most recent announcement about its it's backing a stable coin, a digital cryptocurrency called Libra is a really fascinating look into potentially where they're going to see some more revenues in the future. As you know, and probably your listeners already know, they launched they announced this this plan to use this coin. That's basically going to be backed by. It's going to be held in by a consortium of companies at arm's length from Facebook announced with initially 27 partners. Not a single bank was in the initial group of partners, although they do envisage having banks and other companies there later. They did have a ride sharing on, you know, food companies as well as Visa, MasterCard and other kind of consumer products are there. But it's going to make payments, electronic payments free using WhatsApp and Facebook messenger. So, then the question is, if you're offering me something for free, how can you make money off of it? Clearly, by seeing all the ID that the spending payments is such a rich place to find out customer insights. You know, they must be believing that by seeing all that spending, they're going to be able to. On financial services where they make money from that, right?
Manseeb Khan : I mean, like you said, right. Like right now, they're not partnered up with any banks or anything based on our spending habits and based on where we're sending money, where we're receiving money, they're just going to add more and more players to the Libra ecosystem, right?
Michael King : Yeah, they will. If they've said they're going to basically expand it to at least 100 partners. And by the way, when you say that payments are free. We're talking about cross-border payments. So, there may not be a charge for actually sending the money, but there is a foreign exchange conversion. And typically, you know, PayPal and others, they add a two to three percent charge when converting currencies. Not to mention making a bid ask spread on that foreign exchange transaction. And that can be that can add up when it's billions or trillions of dollars of volume that can create a lot of profit for whoever is managing it.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah. It should be really interesting to see how Facebook handles that. And on top of that differentiates it from that. Right. Because if they're going to if they're going to still charge that 2 to 3 percent charge fee, it should be interesting to see how they kind of market it and how they kind of present it to the customers of like, oh, yeah, yeah. You want some money to Kenya for sure X amount of charge, but we'll try to like jazz it up.
Michael King : Well, it's instant and it's easy and it's convenient. So, you know, most people probably wouldn't think much about paying like 2 percent on a as a service fee.
Manseeb Khan : Yes. No, I actually agree with you. I like to throw it you what are you mostly excited about when it comes to I mean, like everything that we kind of talked about, what are you most excited about and what should I guess the audience and everybody keep in mind or keep top of mind when we're looking at Apple and all these big tech companies moving into financial services?
Michael King : What I'm most excited about is what this means for us as consumers or as customers and whether it's individuals or retail or it could be small business. I think we're going to just have a much better experience when doing our living, our digital or e-commerce lives and as well as offline in the physical commerce world. We're going to see that financial services are going to sort of fade into the background. They're going to not become front and center like the way or the way they are now. Nobody wakes up in the morning saying, hey, I can't wait to go to my bank, you know, pay those fees, or engaged with that individual and the bank. Most people would rather get on with their lives. They want to focus on their spending. They want to focus on their travel, their savings, meeting their friends. And I think financial services are going to become just the way that Jack Mind and Ant financial, they talk about it. They say it's just like tap water. You turn on the tap and water come out. You don't have to worry about where the water is. Is it clean? What's the source? It's available when you need it. You probably don't turn on your light and ask yourself, well, is this Ontario Hydro That's providing this electricity to me or who is. Where's this coming from? You just assume that the electricity is available. And I think that's what's going to happen with financial services. So, we're going to have a reimagined experience. It's focused on us. I would say that institutional markets, institutional clients have been getting a much better service for decades. And now it's the retail consumer and the small businesses turn. That's what fintech is going to deliver to us.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah. That's. That should be really exciting. I can't I can't wait for that future. Michael, is there anything else you want to share with the audience before I let you go?
Michael King : Yeah, I would say that the model that we're seeing. I mean, we've talked about big tech. We talked about tech fins. There are some really interesting fintech companies that are actually building up marketplaces very similar to what we're seeing. You may have seen that Borrowell, for example, as has pivoted from being a platform providing loans to consumers to now being a basically a financial marketplace, offering at least products from 40 or more third parties. That's kind of the way that we're these multi sided business models are really going to become much more prevalent. I think we're going to get away from having individuals fintechs and seeing instead collaboration between them to offer us a variety of products and services. So, I don't know whether people call that fintech 3.0 or 4.0. I'm losing track, but I do think that this is a fast-moving industry and there's lots of innovation going on.
Manseeb Khan : Yeah, no, I'm super excited to see the future of fintech and for it to be just as background as turning the latter turning on the tap. Michael, thank you so much for sitting down with me today. What would the best way for the audience to either reach out to you personally if they have any more questions about the book, if they want to pick your brain out? If you have a new research paper like this through email, Snapchat, Twitter,
Michael King : They say they can certainly find me on LinkedIn, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or to email me at michaelking@uvic.ca. And once the book's out, I'll set up a Web site as. To add to advertising, to share the content with people for free.
Manseeb Khan : Perfect, can't wait to have you on when the book is officially launched. Michael, again. Thank you so much for joining me today and can't wait to have you on next.
Michael King : Thanks, Manseeb.
Outro : you've been listening to fintech Fridays brought to you by NCFA and partners. Tune in weekly for the latest fintech Friday podcast by subscribing to this channel. The National crowdfunding and FinTech Association of Canada is a non-profit actively engaged with social and investment fintech sectors around the globe and provide education research industry stewardship services and networking opportunities to thousands of members and subscribers. For more information please visit and see if a Canada dot org. Oh yea.
End of Podcast
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Nov 12, 2026 Buying a Canadian money services business starts with identifying what the buyer will acquire: a legal entity, a registration history, contracts, records and possibly an active operation. The value of that package depends on whether it supports the services the new owner intends to provide. A FINTRAC registration entry is an important starting point. It does not establish the company’s financial condition, the quality of its compliance programme or the availability of banking relationships after an acquisition. A payment business may also need a separate assessment under the Retail Payment Activities Act, or RPAA. For investors evaluating a Canadian MSB company for sale, due diligence should connect registration status, actual activities, transaction structure and financial evidence before the parties agree a completion timetable. Verify the Canadian MSB registration and legal entity Begin with the target’s exact legal name, incorporation details, registration number and current status. Match the entity in the corporate documents to the entity in FINTRAC’s Money Services Business Registry. FINTRAC explicitly states that registration does not mean it endorses or licenses a business. It also states that it does not issue licences or certificates of registration. A sales presentation using the phrase “FINTRAC licence” should ...
November 12, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Wealthtech Investing And Trading Strategy still runs a software business, but Bitcoin now dominates its assets and capital raising. MSCI no longer treats that balance as an index eligible operating company. November 11, 2026, MSCI confirmed Strategy’s removal from the MSCI USA and MSCI World indexes after the November 30 close under its new methodology for non operating companies. MSCI is one of the world’s largest index providers, and its benchmarks are followed by funds investing across global equity markets. Japan’s Metaplanet is also being removed from an MSCI index. MSCI has decided that Strategy no longer qualifies for its equity indexes because Bitcoin now dominates its assets and much of its capital raising. Strategy still sells software and reports operating revenue, but MSCI is drawing a line between a business that holds investment assets and one where those assets have become the main financial story. Why Is MSCI Removing Strategy From Its Indexes? MSCI first looked at a rule aimed specifically at digital asset treasury companies. It later dropped that proposal and change it's methodology to cover companies whose finances ...
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November 11, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Risk Compliance And Regtech Financial firms are putting AI agents into production well before giving them broad financial authority. That creates time to set identity, permissions and transaction controls before autonomous execution becomes common. On November 11, 2026, Bank of England Financial Policy Committee external member Jonathan Hall used his final FPC speech to examine what happens when AI agents get more authority inside financial firms. A Bank of England and FCA survey of 196 firms found that 80% already deploy AI agents and another 14% plan to within 12 months. Only 2% reported agents with broad autonomy, and none of those were in trading and payments. Finance is adopting agents quickly, but firms are still keeping people and hard limits around the decisions that can change money, positions or customer outcomes. AI Agents Are In Finance But They Are Not Trading Alone The 2026 Bank of England and FCA survey separates four levels of authority: Decision support lets an agent recommend an action while a person decides and executes it. Constrained execution lets the agent act inside preset rules. Conditional autonomy ...
November 10, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Entrepreneurs Startups Small Businesses, Equity Crowdfunding And Alternative Funding A small group of large rounds is carrying Canadian venture totals while deal count and growth stage financing remain well below recent norms. On November 10, 2026, the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association published its Q3 2026 venture capital report. Canadian companies raised $4.3 billion across 397 deals through September, only 1% less capital than a year earlier. But 23 rounds of $50 million or more represented just 6% of disclosed deals and absorbed 58% of all venture capital invested. Deal count has also fallen every year since 2021. The national total is holding up far better than the number of companies getting financed. Six Big Rounds Carried 59% Of Q3 Venture Capital Q3 produced $1.35 billion across 129 deals. Capital was 1% higher than Q2, but deal count fell 15%. Six rounds above $50 million accounted for $793 million, or 59% of the quarter’s capital. That's a decent quarter for the companies that closed those rounds, but a weak quarter for everyone else. Mega rounds above $50 million totalled $2.5 billion across 23 transactions ...
November 11, 2026 | NCFA Story Intelligence | Competition And Market Structure, Wealthtech Investing And Trading, Regulation And Policy Canada is cutting bank fees and switching barriers after years of weak competition, high concentration and poor productivity. On November 7, 2026, the federal government proposed something Canadian investors have complained about for years. Banks would no longer be allowed to charge most investment account transfer fees, which typically cost about $150 per account. Ottawa also wants clearer transfer information and tighter timelines for moving investments to another financial institution. The fee matters because leaving can already be slow and frustrating. Receiving firms often reimburse the outgoing charge to win the account. That means a fee collected by the institution losing the customer can become part of the acquisition cost for the institution trying to win that customer. Canada's six largest banks hold roughly 93% of banking assets. The Competition Bureau was warning about barriers facing fintech competitors in 2017. Ottawa began reviewing open banking in 2018. A federal advisory committee later recommended an operating system by January 2023 and warned that government should not delay. January 2023 came and went. Real Time Rail also slipped years beyond its first expected ...
November 10, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Regulation And Policy Funds, Collateral And Settlement Lead Canada’s Near Term Tokenization Opportunity On November 10, 2026, the Canadian Securities Administrators published its Project Tokenization Phase 1 findings, setting out where Canadian market participants see the strongest commercial opportunities for tokenization and what regulators plan to test next. The report draws on 233 organizations, 21 bilateral meetings and 80 survey responses, along with workshops attended by 281 people in Calgary and 491 in Toronto. Participants put investment funds, private assets, collateral, treasury and settlement infrastructure ahead of public stocks as the strongest near term opportunities. The report also cuts through one of tokenization’s biggest sales pitches. Blockchain can change how an asset is recorded, transferred or settled, but it doesn't automatically create liquidity, investor demand, broader eligibility or stronger ownership rights. Those outcomes still depend on the product, market, legal structure and infrastructure around it. The CSA now plans to take specific projects into Phase 2 through a 120 day public call for proposals. Firms may be able to use existing regulatory processes, tailored regulatory treatment or bounded testing in a ...
Nov 11, 2026 A positive work environment is key for any team that wants to succeed. Team morale is crucial for productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction. Engaging in activities that lift spirits and strengthen connections can lead to great results. Creating a positive team environment requires creativity, engagement, and some fun. Each activity can strengthen connections, boost motivation, and improve workplace dynamics. When teams focus on strategies to boost morale, they work toward shared success. These activities can lead to lasting memories and help build a stronger team culture. Here are some fun strategies to help improve your team's morale and make the workplace livelier. Fun at the Arcade Visiting an arcade spot is a great way to enjoy time together and build teamwork. Imagine your team facing challenges with various games. Whether it's racing or playing team games, the arcade encourages friendly competition and bonding. These fun experiences can help reduce stress and improve relationships among coworkers. Arcades offer many options to suit diverse interests and skill levels. The lively atmosphere invites everyone to relax and take a break from their daily tasks. Shared laughter and enjoyment can lead to better communication and teamwork when you return to the ...
November 10, 2026 | Market Activity | Fundraising, Investing, Trading, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health A Brokerage Race Beyond $0 Commissions On November 10, 2026, Webull Canada added Nasdaq Basic Canada, giving clients free real time Level 1 quote and trade data across Canadian listed equities. The feed provides best bid, best offer and last sale information for stocks listed on the TSX, TSX Venture, CSE and Cboe Canada. Nasdaq says its consolidated feed can reduce Level 1 market data costs by more than 60% compared with traditional Canadian data packages. Webull isn't first to give Canadian investors free real time information. The more interesting story is how quickly another paid feature is becoming part of the basic brokerage account. Wealthsimple helped normalize $0 trading in 2019, Questrade followed in 2025 and Webull dropped its own commissions in April 2026. With the headline trading fee largely gone, brokers now need other reasons for investors to move money and keep it on the platform. Who Led Canada’s Race To $0 Trading And Free Market Data Wealthsimple Trade launched nationally on March 13, 2019 with $0 commissions on Canadian and U.S. stocks and ETFs. Questrade removed commissions on listed stocks and ETFs ...
November 10, 2026 | Market Activity | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding A Toronto Fintech Riskfuel Analytics Brings AI Pricing Into BBVA’s Global Markets Workflow On November 10, 2026, BBVA deployed Riskfuel Analytics' neural pricing technology inside the pre-trade structuring workflow for autocallable products on its ePricer platform. Riskfuel is a Toronto fintech founded in 2019 that builds AI models for derivatives pricing. BBVA is a global bank with a large corporate and investment banking business. The deployment puts Canadian built AI directly into the calculations used to design complex structured products at a major global bank. Riskfuel's model is trained on BBVA's own pricing engine and uses more than 4,000 market and product inputs. The company says the surrogate was tested against more than 100,000 trades and can evaluate thousands of candidate structures in under a minute. BBVA had already added AI generated investment ideas to ePricer in September. Riskfuel goes further into the workflow by speeding up the numerical pricing work while BBVA's own model remains the reference. How Riskfuel Speeds Up BBVA's Autocallable Pricing Autocallables can depend on volatility, interest rates, dividends, maturity, coupon levels and several barrier conditions. Autocallables are structured investments ...
Nov 12, 2026 Buying a Canadian money services business starts with identifying what the buyer will acquire: a legal entity, a registration history, contracts, records and possibly an active operation. The value of that package depends on whether it supports the services the new owner intends to provide. A FINTRAC registration entry is an important starting point. It does not establish the company’s financial condition, the quality of its compliance programme or the availability of banking relationships after an acquisition. A payment business may also need a separate assessment under the Retail Payment Activities Act, or RPAA. For investors evaluating a Canadian MSB company for sale, due diligence should connect registration status, actual activities, transaction structure and financial evidence before the parties agree a completion timetable. Verify the Canadian MSB registration and legal entity Begin with the target’s exact legal name, incorporation details, registration number and current status. Match the entity in the corporate documents to the entity in FINTRAC’s Money Services Business Registry. FINTRAC explicitly states that registration does not mean it endorses or licenses a business. It also states that it does not issue licences or certificates of registration. A sales presentation using the phrase “FINTRAC licence” should ...
November 12, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Wealthtech Investing And Trading Strategy still runs a software business, but Bitcoin now dominates its assets and capital raising. MSCI no longer treats that balance as an index eligible operating company. November 11, 2026, MSCI confirmed Strategy’s removal from the MSCI USA and MSCI World indexes after the November 30 close under its new methodology for non operating companies. MSCI is one of the world’s largest index providers, and its benchmarks are followed by funds investing across global equity markets. Japan’s Metaplanet is also being removed from an MSCI index. MSCI has decided that Strategy no longer qualifies for its equity indexes because Bitcoin now dominates its assets and much of its capital raising. Strategy still sells software and reports operating revenue, but MSCI is drawing a line between a business that holds investment assets and one where those assets have become the main financial story. Why Is MSCI Removing Strategy From Its Indexes? MSCI first looked at a rule aimed specifically at digital asset treasury companies. It later dropped that proposal and change it's methodology to cover companies whose finances ...
Nov 12, 2026 Crypto market cap is calculated by multiplying an asset's reference price by its circulating supply. A token priced at $2 with 50 million units circulating has a market cap of $100 million. The calculation estimates the value of that supply at the reference price; it does not total the money investors deposited. To understand a change in the ranking, examine both inputs and the provider's definitions. A larger number can result from price changes, supply changes, or revised reporting. Establish what the two inputs represent The arithmetic is simple, but neither input is self-explanatory. “Price” may be a reference assembled from selected trading pairs and venues, rather than the last transaction on the exchange you use. A provider may exclude observations or convert quote currencies. Two services can publish different estimates because their source selection and methods differ. Circulating supply is an estimate of units treated as available in the market under a provider's rules. It may differ from the number minted, the total recorded by a contract, or the maximum permitted under a protocol's current design. Locked balances, treasury allocations, burns, and scheduled releases require interpretation. A transparent methodology matters because identical arithmetic can still use ...
November 11, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Risk Compliance And Regtech Financial firms are putting AI agents into production well before giving them broad financial authority. That creates time to set identity, permissions and transaction controls before autonomous execution becomes common. On November 11, 2026, Bank of England Financial Policy Committee external member Jonathan Hall used his final FPC speech to examine what happens when AI agents get more authority inside financial firms. A Bank of England and FCA survey of 196 firms found that 80% already deploy AI agents and another 14% plan to within 12 months. Only 2% reported agents with broad autonomy, and none of those were in trading and payments. Finance is adopting agents quickly, but firms are still keeping people and hard limits around the decisions that can change money, positions or customer outcomes. AI Agents Are In Finance But They Are Not Trading Alone The 2026 Bank of England and FCA survey separates four levels of authority: Decision support lets an agent recommend an action while a person decides and executes it. Constrained execution lets the agent act inside preset rules. Conditional autonomy ...
November 10, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Entrepreneurs Startups Small Businesses, Equity Crowdfunding And Alternative Funding A small group of large rounds is carrying Canadian venture totals while deal count and growth stage financing remain well below recent norms. On November 10, 2026, the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association published its Q3 2026 venture capital report. Canadian companies raised $4.3 billion across 397 deals through September, only 1% less capital than a year earlier. But 23 rounds of $50 million or more represented just 6% of disclosed deals and absorbed 58% of all venture capital invested. Deal count has also fallen every year since 2021. The national total is holding up far better than the number of companies getting financed. Six Big Rounds Carried 59% Of Q3 Venture Capital Q3 produced $1.35 billion across 129 deals. Capital was 1% higher than Q2, but deal count fell 15%. Six rounds above $50 million accounted for $793 million, or 59% of the quarter’s capital. That's a decent quarter for the companies that closed those rounds, but a weak quarter for everyone else. Mega rounds above $50 million totalled $2.5 billion across 23 transactions ...
November 11, 2026 | NCFA Story Intelligence | Competition And Market Structure, Wealthtech Investing And Trading, Regulation And Policy Canada is cutting bank fees and switching barriers after years of weak competition, high concentration and poor productivity. On November 7, 2026, the federal government proposed something Canadian investors have complained about for years. Banks would no longer be allowed to charge most investment account transfer fees, which typically cost about $150 per account. Ottawa also wants clearer transfer information and tighter timelines for moving investments to another financial institution. The fee matters because leaving can already be slow and frustrating. Receiving firms often reimburse the outgoing charge to win the account. That means a fee collected by the institution losing the customer can become part of the acquisition cost for the institution trying to win that customer. Canada's six largest banks hold roughly 93% of banking assets. The Competition Bureau was warning about barriers facing fintech competitors in 2017. Ottawa began reviewing open banking in 2018. A federal advisory committee later recommended an operating system by January 2023 and warned that government should not delay. January 2023 came and went. Real Time Rail also slipped years beyond its first expected ...
November 10, 2026 | NCFA Fintech Market Insight | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding, Regulation And Policy Funds, Collateral And Settlement Lead Canada’s Near Term Tokenization Opportunity On November 10, 2026, the Canadian Securities Administrators published its Project Tokenization Phase 1 findings, setting out where Canadian market participants see the strongest commercial opportunities for tokenization and what regulators plan to test next. The report draws on 233 organizations, 21 bilateral meetings and 80 survey responses, along with workshops attended by 281 people in Calgary and 491 in Toronto. Participants put investment funds, private assets, collateral, treasury and settlement infrastructure ahead of public stocks as the strongest near term opportunities. The report also cuts through one of tokenization’s biggest sales pitches. Blockchain can change how an asset is recorded, transferred or settled, but it doesn't automatically create liquidity, investor demand, broader eligibility or stronger ownership rights. Those outcomes still depend on the product, market, legal structure and infrastructure around it. The CSA now plans to take specific projects into Phase 2 through a 120 day public call for proposals. Firms may be able to use existing regulatory processes, tailored regulatory treatment or bounded testing in a ...
Nov 11, 2026 A positive work environment is key for any team that wants to succeed. Team morale is crucial for productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction. Engaging in activities that lift spirits and strengthen connections can lead to great results. Creating a positive team environment requires creativity, engagement, and some fun. Each activity can strengthen connections, boost motivation, and improve workplace dynamics. When teams focus on strategies to boost morale, they work toward shared success. These activities can lead to lasting memories and help build a stronger team culture. Here are some fun strategies to help improve your team's morale and make the workplace livelier. Fun at the Arcade Visiting an arcade spot is a great way to enjoy time together and build teamwork. Imagine your team facing challenges with various games. Whether it's racing or playing team games, the arcade encourages friendly competition and bonding. These fun experiences can help reduce stress and improve relationships among coworkers. Arcades offer many options to suit diverse interests and skill levels. The lively atmosphere invites everyone to relax and take a break from their daily tasks. Shared laughter and enjoyment can lead to better communication and teamwork when you return to the ...
November 10, 2026 | Market Activity | Fundraising, Investing, Trading, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health A Brokerage Race Beyond $0 Commissions On November 10, 2026, Webull Canada added Nasdaq Basic Canada, giving clients free real time Level 1 quote and trade data across Canadian listed equities. The feed provides best bid, best offer and last sale information for stocks listed on the TSX, TSX Venture, CSE and Cboe Canada. Nasdaq says its consolidated feed can reduce Level 1 market data costs by more than 60% compared with traditional Canadian data packages. Webull isn't first to give Canadian investors free real time information. The more interesting story is how quickly another paid feature is becoming part of the basic brokerage account. Wealthsimple helped normalize $0 trading in 2019, Questrade followed in 2025 and Webull dropped its own commissions in April 2026. With the headline trading fee largely gone, brokers now need other reasons for investors to move money and keep it on the platform. Who Led Canada’s Race To $0 Trading And Free Market Data Wealthsimple Trade launched nationally on March 13, 2019 with $0 commissions on Canadian and U.S. stocks and ETFs. Questrade removed commissions on listed stocks and ETFs ...
November 10, 2026 | Market Activity | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Capital Markets Infrastructure And Funding A Toronto Fintech Riskfuel Analytics Brings AI Pricing Into BBVA’s Global Markets Workflow On November 10, 2026, BBVA deployed Riskfuel Analytics' neural pricing technology inside the pre-trade structuring workflow for autocallable products on its ePricer platform. Riskfuel is a Toronto fintech founded in 2019 that builds AI models for derivatives pricing. BBVA is a global bank with a large corporate and investment banking business. The deployment puts Canadian built AI directly into the calculations used to design complex structured products at a major global bank. Riskfuel's model is trained on BBVA's own pricing engine and uses more than 4,000 market and product inputs. The company says the surrogate was tested against more than 100,000 trades and can evaluate thousands of candidate structures in under a minute. BBVA had already added AI generated investment ideas to ePricer in September. Riskfuel goes further into the workflow by speeding up the numerical pricing work while BBVA's own model remains the reference. How Riskfuel Speeds Up BBVA's Autocallable Pricing Autocallables can depend on volatility, interest rates, dividends, maturity, coupon levels and several barrier conditions. Autocallables are structured investments ...
