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 Opinions
Zuckerberg’s AI Vision Puts Personal Power First
August 13, 2026 | NCFA Insight | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Competition And Market Structure, Public Sector Policy And Industrial Strategy
Meta Sees Superintelligence Driving Invention, Agency And New Economic Models
On August 10, 2026, Meta published The Future Is For Everyone, Mark Zuckerberg's wide sweeping proposal for how superintelligence should fit into society.
The central idea is personal empowerment. Zuckerberg argues that advanced AI should give individuals more ability to create, learn, build businesses, improve their health and pursue their own goals rather than placing most of that intelligence under the control of governments, large institutions or a handful of AI companies.
Meta's vision imagines personal agents working continuously on a user's behalf, small teams building companies that once required much larger organizations, personalized tutors, faster scientific discovery and powerful creative tools available to billions of people.
Meta wants AI capability spread widely, while the compute, models, release decisions and government relationships needed to provide it remain concentrated among a handful of organizations.
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Meta:
“The defining questions of our age are who will have access to superintelligence and what will we direct it towards.”
Meta Is Betting On Invention More Than Automation
One of Zuckerberg's strongest economic arguments is that AI's biggest contribution could come from helping people invent things rather than simply automating today's jobs.
Meta expects individuals to become capable of doing work that currently requires larger teams, more capital or specialized expertise. Zuckerberg predicts more small businesses, more experimentation and potentially more employment as people use AI to create products, services and jobs that don't exist today.
That is a different vision from a future where AI mainly replaces knowledge work. Meta argues that if personal agents increase people's capabilities quickly enough, workers can adapt and new demand can grow alongside automation.
For founders, that could change the economics of starting a company. Product development, research, design, marketing and operations could require fewer people and less initial capital. Small firms could reach meaningful scale much earlier.
Financial services will feel the same pressure. Meta already has AI that can plan work, connect with email and calendars and continue tasks after the user leaves. As agents gain access to financial information and connected services, permissions and accountability become part of the operating model, especially when an agent can act rather than simply advise.
Meta Thinks Distributing AI Can Also Make It Safer
The more unusual part of Zuckerberg's argument is about safety.
He rejects the idea that one centrally controlled superintelligence can be aligned to a single set of values that works for everyone. People disagree about politics, economics, culture and what makes a good life.
Meta's answer is to distribute powerful AI widely enough that people, businesses, governments and competing AI systems check one another.
It is essentially a balance of power argument. One person with vastly better legal, financial or cybersecurity intelligence could gain an enormous advantage. If many people have access to comparable capabilities, Meta argues that power becomes harder to monopolize. (There’s some irony here. Zuckerberg built his fortune by controlling access to data, distribution and network effects that others couldn’t easily replicate.)
See: AI Agents Gain Identity And Wallet Access
That philosophy also influences Meta's approach to alignment. Personal agents should primarily help users pursue their own goals within legal and safety boundaries rather than enforce one company's view of what those goals should be.
Meta says it plans to build a private mode where even Meta can't access a user's information, and it intends to resume releasing some open models. It is also giving its independent board authority to approve safety criteria for model releases rather than leaving those decisions entirely with Zuckerberg or management.
Meta's existing algorithmic products are already under legal scrutiny, including a federal trial involving 29 U.S. states over alleged harm to children. Meta denies the allegations. A company asking people to trust far more capable personal agents will have to show that user empowerment, privacy and safety work in practice. Algorithmic accountability is already moving into the courts as AI and automated systems take on a larger role in people's lives.
The Vision Extends Into Government And Geopolitics
Zuckerberg's decentralization argument has limits.
He wants individuals to have broad access to powerful AI, but he also argues that the United States and its allies should retain leadership in advanced models, silicon and infrastructure. Meta supports continued restrictions on exports of leading chips to geopolitical rivals and wants U.S. policy to make it easier to build data centres and energy capacity.
He also proposes closer cooperation between frontier AI labs and government. Rather than waiting until an advanced model is finished, Meta wants labs to share intermediate model checkpoints and technical staff so governments can identify cybersecurity and other security risks earlier.
See: AI’s Hidden Costs In Replacing Junior Workers
The result still leaves considerable power with governments, frontier labs and the companies that control advanced compute. Individuals would gain far more capability. Governments would receive earlier access for security purposes. Independent boards would get more authority over release standards. Frontier labs would still control development of the most capable models.
Meta's vision is therefore decentralized at the user level while retaining substantial institutional coordination at the frontier.
Meta Has To Finance The Future It Is Promising
Meta expects capital spending of US$130 billion to US$145 billion in 2026 and spent US$31.08 billion in the second quarter alone. It is investing in models, data centres, energy, networking, its own chips and outside accelerators while trying to deliver AI across products already used by billions of people.
If personal superintelligence is going to be free or affordable at global scale, someone still has to pay for the compute..
Meta wants superintelligence broadly distributed, but scarce compute still has to be allocated. Its answer is a dynamic auction for additional capacity, which means the vision of AI for everyone could still produce tiers of access based partly on what users can afford. (conflict?)
The business model hasn't been proven. Meta's second quarter free cash flow fell to US$784 million as infrastructure spending accelerated, even while its core advertising business remained highly profitable.
Meta is making these commitments under real pressure. Its infrastructure spending has climbed rapidly, the company is still building the compute capacity and custom chips needed to compete at the frontier, and its existing platforms face growing legal scrutiny.
The scale of the investment also reinforces a central tension in Zuckerberg's vision. Meta wants personal AI to give individuals more power, but only a small number of companies can currently finance the systems needed to provide it.
Canada Should Pay Attention To Access And Agency
Meta's vision has clear upside for Canada.
Canadian entrepreneurs, researchers and smaller businesses could gain access to capabilities they would never be able to finance themselves. If AI lowers the cost of creating companies, learning new skills and developing new products, a smaller economy can participate without matching U.S. frontier model spending dollar for dollar.
See: Meta AI Rules Trigger Calls For Stricter Oversight
Canada is already debating how to keep more domestic intellectual property, capital and compute capacity while using global AI platforms. The country's AI sovereignty debate is partly about preserving enough domestic capability to avoid becoming only a customer of technology developed and controlled elsewhere.
A recent pro-human AI initiative backed by researchers, business and labour groups also argues for human agency, limits on concentrated power and accountability for AI companies. Zuckerberg reaches some similar principles from a very different starting point.
Canada needs enough choice, competition, data control and domestic capability for its companies and citizens to use increasingly powerful AI on their own terms.
Talking Point
Zuckerberg's bet is that superintelligence can give individuals more power to learn, invent, work and build. Meta has the reach and financial capacity to put that idea in front of billions of people. The cost of doing so is already putting heavy pressure on cash flow.Whether users ultimately gain more control will depend on who controls the models, data, compute and rules behind their personal AI.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Global SupTech Benchmark For Financial Regulators
Jun 20, 2026 | NCFA Resource | Risk Compliance And Regtech, Artificial Intelligence And Data
How Regulators Are Using SupTech To Strengthen Supervision
On June 18, 2026, IOSCO published a Supervisory Tech (SupTech) report called 'Mapping the Use of Technology in Financial Supervision', a global survey of 49 authorities on how regulators are using technology to improve financial supervision. The report maps where SupTech is already being used, what is driving adoption, and which barriers are slowing progress.
SupTech is becoming part of regular ongoing supervision, and is no longer an experiment. Regulators are using technology to improve efficiency, receive and analyze information faster, and strengthen oversight across investor protection, market conduct, capital markets, and emerging areas such as digital assets.
What It Does In Practice
The report gives regulators, fintech firms, and regtech providers a global benchmark for how supervisory technology is being adopted. It covers strategy, budgets, leadership, data, cloud infrastructure, AI, cybersecurity, digital assets, cooperation, and workforce planning.
IOSCO found that efficiency is the main driver of SupTech adoption, followed by faster access to information and stronger supervisory capabilities. AI applications, improved data access, and cloud infrastructure are the leading technology enablers.
Consumer and investor protection and capital markets supervision are the most developed use cases. Digital assets are less mature today, but interest is rising. That gap matters because market activity is moving faster than many supervisory tools.
The report also shows why implementation is hard. Cyber risk, third party dependencies, operational risk, funding gaps, and skills shortages remain major constraints. Many authorities have strategies under way, but full implementation is still uneven.
Who Gets Value
This resource is useful for securities regulators, policy teams, regtech firms, fintech compliance teams, financial institutions, digital asset platforms, market surveillance teams, and researchers tracking regulatory modernization.
It is especially useful for organizations building or assessing tools for market monitoring, fraud detection, complaints analysis, digital asset oversight, supervisory analytics, data collection, and AI enabled supervision.
Strengths And Limits
The strength of this resource is its global scope. The survey covers authorities across all IOSCO regions and gives readers a baseline for comparing SupTech maturity, priorities, and constraints.
It is also useful because it avoids hype. The report shows that many regulators are still using mid level technologies and practical tools. Advanced analytics and machine learning are important ambitions, but funding and implementation capacity remain real limits.
The limit is that it's survey based, not a product guide. It doesn't rank vendors, provide implementation playbooks, or prove which tools produce the best supervisory outcomes. Its value is in the benchmark, the use cases, and the policy signals.
Key Resources
IOSCO SupTech Report (primary report)
IOSCO SupTech Media Release (announcement summary)
AI Agents Enter Governed Financial Workflows (AI governance and controls)
MIT AI Risk Repository For Fintech Governance (AI risk taxonomy resource)
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Bank Of Canada Research On AI Adoption Across Canadian Firms
June 2, 2026 | NCFA Resource | Artificial Intelligence And Data
Benchmarking AI Use Across Canadian Businesses
On June 2, 2026, the Bank of Canada published Canadian firm AI adoption survey data from its December 2025 Business Leaders’ Pulse. The research gives fintechs, investors, financial institutions, regulators, and policy teams a useful benchmark for assessing where Canadian businesses stand on AI use, deployment, capital spending, and employment expectations.
The resource draws on 314 firm responses. It separates personal AI use by business leaders from operational AI use inside firms. Many Canadian leaders already use AI at work, but fewer firms use AI in production, service delivery, or core business workflows.
What It Does In Practice
The research helps readers compare AI awareness with real deployment:
- 75% of surveyed business leaders personally use AI during a typical work week
- 8% of surveyed firms report significant AI use in producing goods or delivering services
- 21% report moderate use
- 29% report experimental or very infrequent use
See: Agentic AI At Home, At Work, Under Scrutiny
The Bank of Canada also shows where AI use starts. Text generation ranks as the most common current application. Visual content creation and machine learning based data processing follow. Over the next three years, firms expect more use of data processing applications, which may matter more for financial services than basic content generation.
For fintechs and financial institutions, AI awareness no longer creates differentiation on its own. The harder work involves choosing real workflows, testing productivity gains, managing risk, training staff, improving data quality, and deciding where AI deserves capital spending.
Who Gets Value
Fintech founders can use the paper to test whether customer demand has reached live deployment or is still stuck in pilot mode. That helps product teams avoid building around hype alone.
Investors can use the data to assess where demand may grow for AI governance tools, workflow automation, data infrastructure, compliance technology, customer service systems, and implementation support.
Financial institutions can compare their own AI programs against broader Canadian firm expectations. The paper gives banks, credit unions, insurers, and wealth firms a clearer view of how business leaders think about investment and employment effects over the next year and the next three years.
Regulators and policymakers can use the paper to understand practical adoption barriers. Firms that do not use AI most often cite lack of usefulness for their operations. Other barriers include skills, software compatibility, ethics, cost, regulatory obstacles, and data quality.
Strengths And Limits
The strength of this resource is its Canadian evidence base. It also separates personal AI use from business deployment, which makes the adoption picture more useful.
See: Is AI Creating A New Compliance Burden?
The paper also connects AI adoption with capital spending and employment expectations. Firms expect AI to have a more positive effect on capital expenditures over three years than over the next 12 months. Employment expectations look more cautious. Over three years, 18% of firms expect to hire fewer staff because of AI, while 9% expect to hire more.
The limit is survey design. The Business Leaders’ Pulse helps assess aggregate economic conditions relevant to Canadian GDP. It doesn't produce population representative estimates of firm behaviour. Readers should treat the results as useful directional evidence, not a full census of Canadian AI adoption.
Key Resources
Bank of Canada AI adoption survey (primary staff analytical paper on firm AI adoption, capital spending, and employment expectations)
Bank of Canada central banking AI resource (resource on AI adoption inside central banking and controlled deployment)
Canada AI productivity analysis (analysis on AI adoption, productivity, capital, and execution)
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Hester Peirce Leaves SEC For Regent Law Faculty Position
May 22, 2026 | NCFA Insight | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Regulation And Policy, Capital Formation And Venture Markets
Image: Hester Peirce (aka Crypto Mom)
Crypto Mom’s SEC Legacy And What Comes Next
On May 21, 2026, reports confirmed that SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce will leave the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission later this year to join Regent University School of Law, closing one of the most closely watched regulatory tenures in digital asset policy.
Peirce became affectionately known globally as “Crypto Mom” because she consistently argued that regulators should give digital asset markets workable rules instead of leaving companies to operate inside uncertainty. Her positions moved from controversial to increasingly mainstream as spot bitcoin ETFs launched, tokenization expanded, and major financial institutions entered digital asset infrastructure.
Her departure doesn't mean pro crypto or pro innovation momentum suddenly disappears from Washington. Digital assets no longer depend on a single regulator defending the sector. Bitcoin ETFs now trade in regulated markets. Large banks are building tokenization infrastructure. Stablecoin legislation continues advancing across major jurisdictions. Institutional adoption no longer sits at the fringe.
Still, Peirce leaves behind a clear regulatory record.
For years, she pushed back against regulation through enforcement. She argued that uncertainty weakens both innovation and investor protection because companies struggle to build compliant products when the rules remain unclear.
Many of the issues she raised directly affected fintech competition, startup capital formation, tokenization, crowdfunding, and investor participation. Her speeches consistently returned to the same core themes, such as open markets, proportional regulation, investor choice, and transparent rulemaking.
Best Of Hester Peirce From NCFA’s Archive
Peirce’s bluntest critique came during the long debate over regulation through enforcement, where she warned that private meetings with crypto firms cannot replace open rulemaking:
“It’s just not a good way of regulating.”
Her frustration with the SEC’s long delay on spot bitcoin funds became even clearer when spot bitcoin ETFs finally won approval after years of rejected applications:
“We squandered a decade of opportunities to do our job.”
Peirce’s Token Safe Harbor proposal became one of the most discussed crypto policy frameworks because it tried to give blockchain networks time to decentralize before full securities obligations applied.
Her public rulemaking philosophy also stood out in her University of Central Florida FinTech Summit remarks, where she urged regulators to approach innovation with both skepticism and openness instead of reflexive resistance. She later warned that poor engagement damages the relationship between regulators and innovators:
“We are scaring people off from coming in and having a conversation with us.”
Even when she defended innovation, Peirce did not argue for eliminating rules. In her statement on tokenized securities, she welcomed the promise of blockchain while drawing a hard compliance line:
“Tokenization may facilitate capital formation and enhance investors’ ability to use their assets as collateral.”
She also added the part many crypto promoters prefer to skip:
“Tokenized securities are still securities.”
That balance partly explains why Peirce maintained credibility across crypto markets and traditional finance circles. She supported innovation, but she also believed markets work best when participants understand the rules.
Her influence reached beyond crypto. Peirce consistently supported broader access to capital markets, regulatory transparency, and competition for smaller firms. Those priorities aligned closely with long standing NCFA positions on equity crowdfunding and capital markets modernization, fintech competitiveness, and proportional regulation for emerging companies.
Very few SEC commissioners become recognizable public figures outside securities law circles. Peirce did because she represented a different philosophy of regulation during one of the most contested periods in financial technology policy.
Her departure closes an important chapter at the SEC. But the larger debates around tokenization, digital asset infrastructure, market access, and programmable finance are now deeply embedded across global financial systems. Those discussions continue with or without Crypto Mom inside the building.
Wishing Crypto Mom All The Best On Her Next Venture
Peirce also engaged directly with the broader fintech and innovation community over the years, including participating in NCFA’s FFCON21: Breaking Barriers program.
On behalf of everyone at NCFA, we thank Hester Peirce for consistently contributing to open debate around innovation, competition, investor choice, and access to capital during one of the most important periods in modern financial market development. We wish her continued success in this next chapter.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Brussels Faces Pressure to Fix Europe’s DLT Pilot
Apr 21, 2026 | NCFA Insight | Capital Markets And Funding
EDFA Tells Brussels What Tokenized Securities Need To Scale
On December 4, 2025, the European Commission published its market infrastructure reform package, including proposed changes to the DLT Pilot Regime. On March 19, 2026, the European Digital Finance Association (EDFA) sent a formal letter to the European Commission about the DLT Pilot Regime and MiCAR. It is addressed to Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque and DG FISMA Director-General John Berrigan.
EDFA writes on behalf of its members and the undersigned companies. The core point is that the pilot works for testing, but it does not work for scale. Firms are already trying to build tokenized issuance, trading, registry, custody, and settlement in Europe. The problem is that the current DLT Pilot rules keep those activities small, separate, and hard to repeat.
What EDFA Is Asking For
- Broader scope. The letter backs earlier application of changes that would extend the DLT Pilot to more, or all, financial instruments and remove product-specific thresholds. It also supports replacing the current instrument-by-instrument limits with a single overall threshold. The reason is practical. Firms will not invest for the long term if issuance caps stay low and the usable asset set stays narrow.
See: The SEC’s New Crypto Playbook Faces Its First Test
- Interoperability standards. The letter calls for mandatory interoperability between DLT infrastructures and regulated markets and central securities depositories, and asks the Commission to task ESMA with developing technical standards for cross-border connectivity. Without that, tokenized venues remain isolated pools. Liquidity fragments. Secondary trading stays thin.
- The Commission to fix the registry and notary gap. The EDFA letter explains that the EU framework opens these roles beyond traditional central securities depositories, but still leaves out firms already operating under national DLT registrar regimes. EDFA points to Germany’s eWpG (electronic securities act, June 2021) system and similar setups in Luxembourg and Italy. It wants those firms to be recognized at the EU level, allowing them to keep operating under their current approvals, and assessed fairly against EU standards. They allso says the rules should match what these firms actually do, instead of forcing them to meet the full requirements designed for large central depositories.
- Legal clarity on settlement. The letter asks for explicit recognition of tokenized commercial bank money and MiCA-regulated e-money tokens as eligible settlement mechanisms inside DLT infrastructures. This is a major point because if settlement assets aren't clearly recognized, companies can issue on-chain but still struggle to build active trading and repeat liquidity.
The Gap Between Pilot And Market
The issue is structural. The DLT Pilot allows firms to test tokenized issuance, trading, and settlement in controlled conditions. But it doesn't allow those activities to operate at scale. Issuance happens, but it stays small. Trading exists, but liquidity doesn't build. Infrastructure is in place, but it doesn't connect cleanly to the rest of the market. Until those limits are addressed, tokenized securities remain confined to pilot activity instead of forming a market where deals can regularly happen at meaningful scale.
If Brussels makes these changes, firms can issue larger deals and do it more than once. Tokenized platforms can connect to exchanges, custodians, and settlement systems instead of running separately. Companies already licensed at the national level can keep operating instead of being pushed out. And with clear settlement rules, those deals can actually trade and attract real liquidity.
See: Tokenization Finds Scale In Collateral And Cash
If Brussels does not act, the likely outcome is also clear. Europe will keep producing tokenized deals as part of the DLT pilot, but the market will remain shallow and less commercially important. Operators will keep building, but they will be outwardly looking at jurisdictions that allow larger, cleaner, and more continuous activity.
Are We There Yet?
The DLT Pilot was designed for controlled testing, and has done that. The question now is whether the framework evolves to support real market activity. If it doesn’t, tokenized securities will stay limited to small, controlled use cases. If it does, they can develop into a market with real issuance, trading, and liquidity.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Canada’s Artemis II Moment Challenges How We Build
Apr 3, 2026 | NCFA Innovation Perspective | Moonshot Thinking
A Reminder Of What Big Thinking Takes
On April 1, 2026, Canada’s Artemis II mission reaches launch as Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen boards NASA’s Orion spacecraft, becoming the first Canadian and first non American on a mission beyond Earth orbit to the Moon.
It’s the first crewed Moon mission since 1972, and the 10 day flight around the Moon is designed to carry humans further from Earth than any mission before. For Canada, it’s proof that bold ambition still counts when a country backs talent, engineering, and strategic partnerships over a long stretch of time.
Artemis II isn’t the result of a quick push or a short funding cycle. It reflects decades of work in robotics, advanced systems, and international collaboration. Canada didn't get this seat by accident. It earned it. More founders, investors, institutions, and policymakers should stop and think about that.
This Didn’t Happen Overnight
Big outcomes rarely appear overnight. By the time the world sees the launch, the hard part has already been building quietly for years. Artemis II carries four astronauts around the Moon and back. Hansen’s place on that crew shows that Canada still plays a meaningful role in one of the most important technology programs now underway. That role is tied to long term Canadian contributions in space robotics, including the Canadarm legacy and Canada’s Canadarm3 commitment to the Lunar Gateway.
Ambition on its own is cheap. Everyone says they want to build big things. What matters is whether people keep going when the payoff is far away, the standards stay high, and the result is still uncertain. Artemis II shows what can happen when the mission stays clear and people stay committed.
This Is Bigger Than Space
This reaches far beyond aerospace. In fintech, financial infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and other serious technology sectors, people often talk about transformation. But real transformation asks for something uncomfortable. It asks for patience from backers, fellow builders and community. It asks for coordination. It asks for institutions that can think beyond the next quarter.
See: Life Isn’t Linear: Curveballs and Strikeouts
If Canada wants stronger digital identity systems, better financial infrastructure, more globally competitive AI companies, deeper capital markets, and more durable domestic champions, it can’t keep thinking small and expect outsized results. Those goals take time. They take conviction. They take leadership that sticks with the work long enough for the advantage to build.
Artemis II gives Canada a live example of what that looks like when the bet is real, the timeline is long, and the standard doesn’t drop.
Canada Doesn’t Have A Talent Problem
Canada has talent. It has real technical depth. It has researchers, engineers, operators, and builders who can compete globally. What it often lacks is the willingness to place bigger bets and stay with them long enough. Artemis II is important for at least one key moonshot innovation reason. It exposes a familiar Canadian habit. We talk like a country with big potential, then act like one that is afraid to commit.
This mission shows that Canada can still contribute at the highest level when it decides to stay in the game. It also shows that credibility is earned over time. You don’t get invited into missions like this because people are being polite. You get there because your contribution is important and your capability is trusted. That should sound familiar to anyone trying to build a serious company in a serious market.
So What Does Bigger Thinking Actually Look Like
Moonshot thinking does not mean reckless thinking. It means taking on problems that are hard enough to matter and important enough to justify sustained effort. In practical terms, that could mean building financial infrastructure that removes friction across the system, creating AI tools that solve real regulated workflow problems, or designing funding models that help strong Canadian companies scale here instead of leaving early.
See: Canada’s Innovation Paradox – Strong Start, Missing Impact
At first, that kind of ambition can look expensive, slow, or unrealistic. Later, it often looks obvious. That’s how breakthroughs actually play out. Artemis II is a reminder that countries don't build lasting relevance by backing lots of small bets. t’s built by committing to the work that defines what comes next.
This Can’t Be A One Off
Jeremy Hansen’s flight around the Moon gives Canada a rare public moment people can feel right away. The deeper value sits underneath that moment. This mission shows what long horizon ambition looks like when people actually follow through. It shows younger builders what serious technical achievement looks like. It shows investors and policymakers that long cycle bets can produce real global relevance. And it shows that Canada still has the ability to achieve moonshots when it chooses to commit.
The question now is whether Canada treats Artemis II as a celebration or as a standard. One gives us a proud moment. The other gives us something much more valuable. It gives us permission to think bigger, build longer, and stop pretending that incremental ambition will somehow produce exceptional results.
If this is what Canada can build over decades, what are you building today that is worth the same commitment?
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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OSFI and GRI Workshops Reveal What Regulated AI Needs
Mar 24, 2026 | NCFA Feature | AI Finance And Data Governance
OSFI And GRI AI Workshops Show What Regulated AI Needs
On Mar 23 2026, OSFI and the Global Risk Institute published the FIFAI II final report based on four workshops held between May and November 2025. More than 170 participants took part across banks, insurers, asset managers, fintechs, vendors, regulators, academics, and consumer voices.
The report confirms that AI adoption is here, citing 72% AI use at work in financial services and 75% organizational support for AI. While AI is already in use. The real issue is what still limits its use in regulated decisions and customer outcomes.
The series covered four areas that affect operational, prudential, consumer, and system-wide risk at the same time. Full report and framework: FIFAI II final report and AGILE framework PDF
- Security and Cybersecurity workshop PDF
- Financial Crime workshop PDF
- Financial Stability workshop PDF
- Financial Well-being and Consumer Protection workshop PDF
AI Won't Spread At The Same Speed
One of the clearest takeaways is that AI will not spread across finance at the same speed. The first gains will come in internal functions such as fraud detection, surveillance, reporting, cyber defence, and operations. Those areas already have strong data, measurable outputs, and clearer accountability.
Customer-facing decisions are different. Underwriting, advice, product recommendations, and self-serve tools carry more pressure around explainability, fairness, consent, and complaints handling.
AI powered Canadian finance will likely grow faster in control functions than in customer-facing decisions.
Third Party AI Is No Longer Just A Vendor Issue
The report treats third party AI as more than a procurement issue. It highlights growing dependence on external providers for models, infrastructure, and data, along with limited visibility into how those systems work and who sits behind them.
It's important because a failure, outage, or change in access at one provider can affect more than one function at the same time. Fraud controls, underwriting tools, customer service, and risk monitoring can all be exposed together. The financial stability workshop adds to that concern by linking third party dependency to concentration and system level risk.
See: Inside the Feedback Loops Driving AI Failure
Banks, insurers, and fintechs will need stronger oversight of models and providers, better audit access, tested fallback plans, and clearer visibility into the wider supply chain behind key AI services.
Fraud Is Becoming Harder To Contain
AI is improving both offence and defence. The final report points to synthetic identity, deepfakes, voice spoofing, AI assisted cyberattacks, fraud as a service, and disinformation. It notes a sharp rise in deepfake attacks and growing concern about voice verification as AI voice cloning improves.
This reality changes the operating environment. Static controls lose value faster when attack tools get cheaper, stronger, and easier to use. Manual review and occasional rule updates will not be enough. Firms will need faster detection, stronger identity controls, better information sharing, and systems that can adjust while attacks are happening.
Weak Identity And Poor Data Still Limit What AI Can Do
Data problems come up across the whole series, but the larger issue is bigger than data quality alone. Weak identity and fragmented data still limit how far AI can go in regulated finance. The report points to inconsistent data, incomplete records, fragmented platforms, offshore storage concerns, and weak data lineage as barriers to both efficiency and safety.
See: AI Agents Gain Identity and Wallet Access WCGW
The report doesn't mince words on identity. Canada still doesn't have a widely adopted secure digital identity layer. That leaves onboarding, authentication, consumer channels, remote work, and agent based systems more exposed than they should be. If identity and data remains weak, AI will keep working best in narrower internal use cases and face more limits in customer facing execution.
Board Oversight Has To Show Up In Real Controls
The final report introduces the AGILE framework as part of its overall findings, which stands for Awareness, Guardrails, Innovation, Learning, and Ecosystem Resiliency. The framework calls for stronger governance and oversight, stronger data and risk controls, continued investment in technology and talent, and deeper public private collaboration.
AI oversight cannot remain just at the strategy level. If AI is used in lending, fraud, underwriting, complaints, or customer recommendations, governance has to show up in controls, evidence, escalation, and accountability. In regulated finance, that's what turns AI use from experimentation into something firms can defend and scale.
What Financial Institutions and Fintechs Do Now
The workshop series points to a practical sequence:
First, identify where AI already impacts decisions and controls.
Second, separate the use cases that can scale now from the ones that still need stronger explainability and customer safeguards.
See: AI Governance Gaps Exposed By Legal Leaders
Third, tighten vendor oversight before dependency grows further.
Fourth, invest more in identity, data lineage (origin and how it's used and updated), and real time fraud controls.
Fifth, show boards stronger evidence instead of high level claims and broad assurance language.
The report also carries a warning worth taking seriously. Firms that move too slowly can fall behind on productivity, resilience, and customer expectations while still facing external AI enabled threats. One participant line stands out: “The biggest risk is not doing enough.”
Why This Matters For Canada
Canada’s national AI strategy work has focused heavily on trust, safety, and responsible adoption. That is necessary, but this workshop series adds something more useful for operators. It shows where AI use slows once it enters regulated finance: concentrated provider risk, weak identity, fragmented data, explainability pressure, fraud risk, and unclear accountability.
There's a call to action policy lesson here too. Canada doesn't just need AI ambition and adoption. It needs stronger execution layers around Digital ID, data governance, third party oversight, and information sharing if it wants regulated financial AI to scale beyond contained pilots.
The OSFI and GRI workshop series is useful because it takes a holistic approach to identifying and adapting to AI risks in finance. AI is already inside financial systems. The advantage now goes to firms that can prove control, trust, and accountability in live decisions.
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