Forging a new path for sustainable and inclusive prosperity in Canada
No More Secrecy
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 and Networking Events
[Event, Oct 7, 2021]: Rising to the Challenge of New Global Realities
PPF | Sep 28, 2021
Forging a new path for sustainable and inclusive prosperity in Canada
The reopening of the economy and the election of a new Parliament provides an opportunity for the country to address a series of long-standing and more recent societal challenges with the same determination as the pandemic itself. The following critical issues leave Canada no choice but to forge new routes to an improved future:
- Accelerating technological change
- The shifting nature of work
- Rising demands for equality and inclusion
- Disrupted immigration patterns
- Climate-induced energy transformation
- Emerging international rivalries
To this end, a working group of 12 members of Canada’s Senate undertook a study in late 2020 to examine where our nation should turn in developing the next wave of prosperity and how to ensure this success is shared by all. The Senate Prosperity Action Group heard presentations from more than 40 experts from across the economic and social spectrum, which will culminate in a report with recommended policy actions to be released in the weeks ahead.
The Public Policy Forum and Senate Speaker George J. Furey invite you to a special event featuring the Senate Prosperity Action Group and some of the most respected Canadian political leaders of the past half-century including John Manley, former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, Frances Donald, Chief Economist, Manulife Financial, Tabatha Bull, President & CEO, Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, Monique Leroux, Chair, Industry Strategy Council and Chris Ragan, Professor, McGill University and former Chair, Eco-Fiscal Commission. Our panelists will unpack the report and discuss how Canadian society can work together to achieve sustainable and inclusive prosperity. We also look forward to welcoming the Rt. Hon. Joe Clark and the Hon. Christy Clark for a fireside chat on Building Consensus which will be moderated by PPF President & CEO, Edward Greenspon.
Event:
Thursday October 7, 2021
1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Register for this event --> here
Download the 66 page PDF report --> here
Related Report links:
A New North Star: Canadian Competitiveness in an Intangibles Economy
How to Build Canada’s Competitiveness Amidst the Rise of an Intangibles Economy and Greater Geopolitical Complexity
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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[Brooking’s Event Sep 30]: Regulating cryptocurrencies and future technologies: A conversation with Manuel P. Alvarez
Brookings | Sep 22, 2021
Everyone is talking cryptocurrency, but what is crypto, how does it work, should it be regulated, and if so, how? How do investors decide to provide early support for new technologies, especially for financial technology, when so much is unknown? What future technologies can be seen on the horizon?
Thursday, September 30, 2021, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. EDT
On Thursday, September 30, Brookings Nonresident Fellow Loni Mahanta will host Manuel P. Alvarez for a discussion of these questions and more on regulating new technologies now and in the future. Alvarez previously served as the commissioner of the California Department of Business Oversight, the state’s banking and financial regulatory agency, where he led the department in its transition to the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation and spearheaded its focus on protecting consumers from harmful practices, increasing access to financial literacy and technology, and engaging under-served communities. Alvarez also served as general counsel and chief compliance officer of Affirm, Inc., where he led the fintech company’s legal and regulatory compliance efforts.
Continue to the full article --> here
Register for this virtual event --> here
Noteworthy:
Former Commissioner of the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, Manuel P. Alvarez, Joins Binance.US
Leading digital asset marketplace Binance.US has recently announced that Manuel “Manny” P.Alvarez, who previously served as Commissioner of the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, would be joining their team as Chief Administrative Officer from July 22 onwards. As the Chief Administrative Officer, Alvarez will supervise the major control functions such as risk, compliance, and legal. More 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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Hedera Hashgraph beats DLT competitors on energy consumption
Finextra | Sep 8, 2021
A research report by University College London (UCL) has examined the varying environmental impacts of six different distributed ledger technologies (DLT), finding that Hedera Hashgraph boasts the lowest overall energy consumption of the group.
Algorand, Cardano, Ethereum 2.0, Hedera Hashgraph, Polkadot, and Tezos were compared, with researchers from UCL’s Centre for Blockchain Technologies (ULC CBT) considering how second-generation consensus models such as Proof-of-Stake perform when compared with their predecessors (such as Proof-of-Work).
Read: The London Hard Fork is a big step towards Ethereum 2.0’s major upgrade
Dr. Paolo Tasca, executive director at UCL CBT explained: “At this point, the benefits of Proof-of-Stake are well-recognised and understood in the blockchain space.
However, through this research we have found that not all Proof-of-Stake networks are created equally.
By formalising a “basic mathematical consumption model for validator-based Sybil attack resistance schemes,” the energy consumption per transaction based on common input variables could be quantified. The study ultimately discovered that the energy needs of (varying) consensus protocols is dependent on the number of active validators.
As the scale of DLT networks increase, the report concludes that networks must remain focused on environmental friendliness. The quality of hardware used by node operators and the effect of different design choices within DLT architecture must be considered through the lens of the environmental impact they can incur.
See:
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How blockchain and cryptocurrencies can help build a greener future
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The Carbon Footprint of Cryptocurrency
“In this paper, we tested this hypothesis using a mathematical consumption model that predicts expected energy consumption per transaction, as a function of network load. Applying this model to six different PoS-based DLT systems supports the hypothesis and suggests that their energy consumption per transaction is indeed at least two to three orders of magnitude lower than that of Bitcoin.
“Furthermore, we discover significant differences among the analysed PoS-based systems themselves. Here, a permissioned system was found to consume significantly less energy per transaction than permissionless systems. This difference could be attributed to gatekeeping capabilities offered by permissioned systems.”
Continue to the full article --> here
Download the 14 page discussion paper 'Energy Footprint of Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms
Beyond Proof-of-Work' --> 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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Oct 13, 2021: OSC virtual roundtable on ‘Rethinking Diversity in Capital Markets’
OSC | Aug 25, 2021 (last updated Sep 16)
The OSC is hosting a virtual roundtable to discuss whether, and how, the disclosure needs of Canadian investors, and corporate governance practices among public companies have evolved. Panelists will speak about the benefits, challenges and experiences associated with the consideration of broader diversity on boards and in executive officer positions, with a specific focus on diversity data, targets and term limits. The panelists include representatives of issuers, investors and advocacy groups, as well as governance experts.
Event Details
Oct 13, 2021
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Virtual Event (Webinar)
The roundtable is open to the public; register and receive a link to watch the webinar
The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) will host a virtual roundtable on Wednesday, October 13 from 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. ET to discuss broader diversity (beyond gender) on boards and in executive officer positions, with a specific focus on targets, term limits and diversity data.
The OSC has convened an expert panel to explore the benefits, challenges and experiences associated with the consideration of broader diversity, as well as evolving corporate governance practices and disclosure needs of Canadian investors. The roundtable panellists are:
- Rahul Bhardwaj, ICD.D, President and CEO, Institute of Corporate Directors
- Wes Hall, ICD.D, Executive Chairman and Founder at Kingsdale Advisors, The BlackNorth Initiative, Dragon on CBC's Dragons' Den
- Sarah Kaplan, Distinguished Professor and Director, Institute for Gender and the Economy, U of T’s Rotman School of Management
- Catherine McCall, Executive Director, Canadian Coalition for Good Governance
- Rima Ramchandani, Partner and Co-Head of Capital Markets Group, Torys LLP
- Paul Schneider, Head of Corporate Governance, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan
- Grant Vingoe, Chair and CEO, Ontario Securities Commission
The panel will be moderated by Wendy Berman, Vice-Chair, Ontario Securities Commission.
Attendees will have an opportunity to direct questions to the panel.
live on October 13 from 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. ET. For those unable to watch the live webinar, a transcript and link to watch the video-recording will be available after the event on the OSC website.
If you have any questions, please contact us at eventsregistration@osc.gov.on.ca
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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Regulators worry tech giants ‘Too Big to Fail’ because they are hosted in the cloud
Reuters | By Iain Withers and Huw Jones | Aug 20, 2021
No More Secrecy
Regulators worry that cloud failures would cause banking systems to fall over and stop people accessing their money, but say they have little visibility over cloud providers.
Last month, the Bank of England said big tech companies could dictate terms and conditions to financial firms and were not always providing enough information for their clients to monitor risks – and that “secrecy” had to end.
There is also concern that banks may not be spreading their risk enough among cloud providers.
Google told Reuters that less than a fifth of financial firms were using multiple clouds in case one failed, according to a recent survey, although 88% of those that did not spread their risk yet planned to do so within a year.
See: Big techs in finance: regulatory approaches and policy options
Central bank sources said part of the solution may be some form of mechanism that offers reassurance on resilience from cloud providers to banks to mitigate the sector’s aggregate exposure to one cloud service – with the banking regulator having the overall vantage point.
“Regardless of the division of control responsibilities between the cloud service provider and the bank, the bank is ultimately responsible for the effectiveness of the control environment,” the U.S. Federal Reserve said in draft guidance issued to lenders last month.
FINRA, which regulates Wall Street brokers, published a report on Monday ahead of potential rule changes to ensure that using the cloud does not harm the market or investors.
Being able to switch cloud providers easily when needed is, however, a task that is more easily said than done and could introduce disruptions to business, the FINRA report said.
The Buck Stops with Us
Banks and tech firms contest the suggestion that greater adoption of the cloud is making the financial system’s infrastructure inherently riskier.
Adrian Poole, director for financial services in the United Kingdom and Ireland for Google Cloud, said the cloud can be more effective in bolstering a bank’s security capabilities than by building it in-house.
See: Market value of big fintech companies rises to $1 trillion, more than the largest banks
British digital lender Zopa said it had moved 80% of its transactions to the cloud and was working to mitigate risks. Zopa Chief Executive Jaidev Janardana said the company was also deliberately leaning on tech firms’ expertise.
“Cloud providers invest a lot of resources in security at a scale that few individual companies could manage,” he said.
Google’s Poole said the company was open to working more closely with financial regulators.
“We may one day see regulators pulling data on demand from regulated banks with cloud-enabled application programming interfaces (APIs), instead of waiting for banks to periodically push data at them,” he said.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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The Ultimate Guide to Holding a Fintech Conference
Guest Post | Aug 26, 2021
Hosting your first fintech conference can be difficult, though rewarding. If you want to stage a conference that can bring together fintech professionals from all over the country and the globe to discuss the latest innovations and developments, here is an ultimate guide to some of the best steps that you need to take to make it a success.
Get Branded Merchandise
Although this might not seem like a priority when you are planning to host a conference, investing in branded merchandise can be a great way to advertise your brand and that of your sponsors. Finding branded merchandise for events can ensure that your guests never forget why they have come to your conference or who is hosting it. It can also make sure that they remember your brand long after the conference has ended. One of the most fun options that you can choose from is custom printed trucker hats. This can help your guests to advertise your brand by wearing your merchandise outside of work or can allow your employees and volunteers to be instantly recognized by your guests.
Find FinTech Speakers
The central event of your conference, though, will usually be your speakers. Many professionals will be enticed to your event by the name of a renowned speaker, and choosing the right individual can allow your guests to leave feeling inspired, and as if your event was worth every second they remained away from their company. Then, you should try to find a well-known speaker who has insight into some of the most modern fintech developments and innovations.
Invite Professionals
When your fintech conference is fast approaching, you should then get the word out about it by inviting many of the professionals that are working within the Fintech industry. By inviting them directly, you will be able to ensure a higher rate of attendance and will be ensuring that some of the biggest names in your industry hear about your conference. You should also try to raise the profile of your event by sending a press release to industry newspapers and publications, as this will ensure that information about it is shared with your target audience.
Get Sponsors
To make the day run like clockwork, though, you often need a great amount of funding, especially if you want to hire out a large and central venue, as well as decorate the space, and hire caterers and speakers.
See: Fintech Fridays EP48: How to Connect and Resonate with Customers Through Podcasting
One of the best ways to get the funding that you will need is to get large companies and investors to sponsor your event in return for free advertising for them.
Stay Organized
Your conference is unlikely to be successful if it is not organized tightly. It is paramount that you can stick to a strict schedule and that you can keep track of all your guests and make sure their needs are met throughout the evening. This will prevent your event from becoming a disaster and will make sure guests will be willing to come to your events again, as well as ensuring that they leave with a good impression of your company.
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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Elon Musk Just Tweeted a Life-Changing Decision, and Almost Nobody Even Noticed
Inc. | Bill Murphy Jr. | Jul 3, 2021
Space travel is wild. Electric cars are neat. Crypto is cool. But if you really want to understand Elon Musk (he's the subject of my free e-book, Elon Musk Has Very Big Plans, I'd look to a specific tweet from 24 days ago. Here's the tweet, from June 9, in which Musk described where and how, exactly, he's decided to live:
My primary home is literally a ~$50k house in Boca Chica / Starbase that I rent from SpaceX. It's kinda awesome though. Only house I own is the events house in the Bay Area. If I sold it, the house would see less use, unless bought by a big family, which might happen some day.
See: Businesses competing on social values use fintech to gain an edge
It turns out, Musk is almost certainly living in a 380-square-foot, tiny, foldable house-in-a-box, which was manufactured by a company called Boxabl, delivered to the SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica, TX on a flatbed truck, and set up on-site in less than a day.
Boxabl co-founder Galiano Tiramani explained in the video how the house was built and transported--and teased that it had been delivered for the use of "a top-secret customer" located in (you guessed it): Boca Chica, Texas.
You'll note that Tiramani sits next to a giant poster of a SpaceX rocket inside the tiny home while he talks about his "top-secret customer," so this didn't exactly require Sherlock Holmes levels of deductive reasoning.
Now, the big question is what kind of kind of investment Musk or Tesla might have made in Boxabl. It's a private company, and so far they're not saying.
See: Building Cities With Online Platforms And Opportunity Zones
We live in an era in which housing affordability is a huge and growing problem almost everywhere--and then we find out that Musk, with a reported net worth as I write this of $167.7 billion--literally lays his head at night inside the prototype for a possible home of the future?
That's a big idea. In fact, it's quite possibly even bigger than electric cars and space travel, at least during our lifetimes.
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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