Whether you pay by 
Conclusion 
Employers are increasingly aware of the vital role that line managers play in hybrid and remote-working contexts
The quiet quitters are getting quiet fired. Remote work has made communication harder, fuelling a 'quiet' showdown between employees and employers
The time for unhappy compromise is over. What if the federal government showed some courage and decisively picked a side?
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) director Rohit Chopra lobbed a surprise grenade onto the expo floor at Money 20/20 Tuesday morning by announcing plans for an open banking “doorman authority” rule.
Abraham Tachjian is the man Ottawa has hired to develop an open banking system that is expected to roll out in 2023. As the clock ticks, industry players give him an ear on how to get the job done; Canada’s open banking czar is feeling the heat.
Managers and workers have the opposite opinions of remote work, Satya Nadella says, but the data doesn’t lie.
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
Can Canada go Cashless?
Global News | Alley Wilson & Anne Gaviola | Oct 29, 2022
Whether you pay by debit, credit, mobile wallet or smartwatch, speed and convenience are driving the way Canadians are choosing to pay, but it all comes with a price — cash as a payment option is steadily declining.
- Cashless is Trending
- Pandemic: The spike in digital adoption was fuelled in part by the pandemic, as Canadians turned to virtual, mobile and online payment transactions in record numbers.
- Payment options: In Canada, credit cards remained the top method of payment followed by debit, with Canadians reiterating ease, speed and convenience as the reasons they opt for plastic over cash, according to Payments Canada’s most recent report.
See: Cashless society: We need to take digital jail seriously
- With Canadians opting for more contactless, digital forms of payments, more doors open for newer, more futuristic in-store shopping experiences, like Aisle 24. “We have people coming into our stores with nothing but their phones or nothing but their watches because that’s the trend,” says Yong, adding that most customers are in and out of Aisle 24 within five minutes.
- Trust: "Part of Canada’s success with switching to contactless forms of payment is that we trust the technology" - Mark Hayward, Associate professor at York University
- A recent Global Payments Report projects that by 2025, cash will only make up three per cent of all point-of-sales transactions in Canada — one of the lowest cash payment rates in the world.
- We need to think about equal access to services: Hayward says a cashless society isn’t just about the selling and purchasing of items, but it’s a much broader question about caring for everyone around us and making sure everyone has equal access to services.
- “We can think about this in terms of older users who don’t want to use new technology. We can think about this in terms of unhoused people who may not have bank accounts for whom access to digital commerce may be very difficult.”
- There are still a lot of businesses that rely on cold, hard cash. “The cafe down the street is still cash only. The liquor and lounge across the street, they’re cash only. The barber shop where I get my haircut, she’s cash only,” she says. “There are a lot of cash-only places.”
See: Card Usage is Declining to Digital Wallets: Fee Structure is Unsupportable and Facing Competition
- In a report, Nye wrote that even though cash transactions are declining, demand for cash was at its highest level in 60 years. Nye adds the reason why Canadians stash cash during tumultuous times is because it provides a sense of comfort and security. “It protects against things like cyber vulnerabilities, potential power outages, telecom outages like we saw this summer. There’s some safety that’s afforded by having access to physical cash.”
- Although experts like Nye believe Canada is still a long way from becoming a truly cashless society, there’s still talk of new currencies and services, such as micro-payments, buy now pay later, crypto or even central bank digital currencies, which our central bank, the Bank of Canada, is studying.
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
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Opinion: Crypto and Financial Inclusion – Dispelling Narratives
Brookings | Tonantzin Carmona | Oct 26, 2022
Conclusion
Before embracing cryptocurrencies or overstating their potential, policymakers should first clarify the problems they are trying to solve, and more importantly, why they are trying to solve them.[87] When it comes to crypto and financial inclusion, there are fluctuating and contested terms and narratives. Thus, it may be difficult to discern what groups, problems, or pain points we are striving to address.
When examined closely, crypto’s current capabilities do not match the needs of the groups it purports to serve, and it carries a host of risks and drawbacks that undermine its benefits. More alarming, we can observe parallels between crypto and other predatory products, which highlights crypto’s potential to exacerbate unequal financial services to historically excluded groups.
See:
-
BIS Report: Can CBDCs be designed to help financial inclusion?
-
So what is financial exclusion in the era of Open Finance?
Considering this reality, we can either encourage inequitable and exclusionary banking systems to persist by enabling others to profit from the inequities, or we can develop the courage to ensure that banking is truly inclusive. For these reasons, rather than endorse crypto as a tool for equity, we should instead promote and explore policy solutions that can more directly and impactfully achieve and bolster financial inclusion.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Managers are Vital to Culture and Drivers of Engagement | Quiet Quitters are Getting Fired
Raconteur | Cath Everett| Oct 19, 2022
Employers are increasingly aware of the vital role that line managers play in hybrid and remote-working contexts
- Line managers used to be considered “pivotal” to organisational success in a world that is moving increasingly towards hybrid working, Managers are now recognised as “critical catalysts for change”.
- They are also understood to be “carriers of culture, the glue, drivers of performance and engagement, and connectors”
- Managers play a crucial role in creating a positive employee experience, which includes becoming effective coaches who proactively support and develop their teams. Also vital is becoming a skilful storyteller as “crafting narratives to win buy-in and support purpose” is the “glue” that binds everything else together.
See: Work Trends: Employees Feel the Opposite but the ‘Data doesn’t lie’ | Women Leaving Companies at Highest Rate Ever
- This layer is critical as middle managers are ultimately responsible for engaging and motivating teams on a daily basis – they’re the first point of contact, whether virtually or in person
- Managers need to become connectors with soft skills. This means facilitating connection-focused conversations to ensure employees are highly engaged. What this means in practice is that managers operating in a hybrid or remote-working context are now required to demonstrate higher levels of proficiency in soft skills.
Continue to the full article --> here
Financial post | | Oct 25, 2022
The quiet quitters are getting quiet fired. Remote work has made communication harder, fuelling a 'quiet' showdown between employees and employers
- Quiet Quitting: You’ve probably heard of quiet quitting, in which workers refuse to do much more than meet the expectations laid out in their job descriptions. That sounds reasonable enough to most employees — and many have argued the term simply means doing your job — but bosses haven’t been too pleased about it.
- Four out of 10 managers in Toronto say they’re putting in extra time and effort because staff under the age of 30 are doing less, according to a recent poll conducted by recruiter Robert Walters Canada.
- The young professionals pulling back at work say it’s mostly because they aren’t paid enough. As high inflation and the rising cost of living take a bite out of paycheques, many employees assume their employers can and should make up the difference with a hefty raise.
See: Slack Survey Insights: How to Make Hybrid Work Successful
- Quiet Firing: As a result, we’re witnessing a silent war play out between employees and their managers, some of whom are fighting back in their own passive-aggressive way by “quiet firing” the quiet quitters.
- Quiet firing subtly freezes out an employee by either avoiding one-on-one conversations, refusing to provide feedback, neglecting to share critical information needed to do a job, passing them over for a promotion or subjecting them to stingy raises — or no raise at all — while co-workers are awarded more.
- The effect can be demoralizing for an employee, which is exactly the point. “Eventually, you’ll either feel so incompetent, isolated and unappreciated that you’ll go find a new job, and they never have to deal with a development plan or offer severance”
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Opinion: Time for the Government to Decide – ‘Who Decides What for Whom’?
The Mox | Alex Vronces | Oct 25, 2022
The time for unhappy compromise is over. What if the federal government showed some courage and decisively picked a side?
- As Canada tiptoes to open banking, the question that belies the saying—who decides what for whom?—is looming over the federal government. Canada’s open banking lead, Abraham Tachjian, is mostly working with banks and fintech companies to develop a rulebook that would dictate how Canadians can port their financial information from their banks to other organizations of their choosing.
- Industry stakeholders are fighting over the pen to write Canada’s rulebook. But who takes over the rulebook, and decides what for whom, when the rulebook is finally written?
See: NCFA Open Banking Governance with Senator Colin Deacon and Mahi Sall
- When the federal government started consulting on open banking a few years ago, it stood up an advisory committee that produced a final report last year. The final report has dozens of recommendations, a few of which are about governance. Ultimately, the advisory committee sees a role for a “fit-for-purpose” entity, established by the federal government, that would “manage the on-going administration of the [open banking] system” once Tachjian’s work is done.
Big banks want the government to do less.
- That government is best which governs least. And how can you blame them for believing it?
- As they should, Canada’s big banks like to remind us how great they are. The Canadian Bankers Association wrote to the government that “Canada has a long history as a global leader in developing industry solutions to help meet broad public policy objectives, through highly consultative and collaborative relationships between financial institutions and regulators.”
Many of Canada’s fintech companies think the government needs to be more involved.
- That government is best which governs best.
- The status quo—the government which has governed least—has neither supported fintech companies nor the Canadians who want their services. Sometimes, big banks prevent fintech companies from accessing the financial information of their customers, even though their customers want the fintech companies to have it. This keeps Canadians away from the financial services they chose. It also doesn’t give Canadians a secure and efficient way to share financial information. The only way is for Canadians to give fintech companies permission to do what’s called screen scraping.
So what do Canada’s facts and circumstances call for?
I can’t help but recall a letter from David Skok, the Logic’s CEO and editor-in-chief:
“There are major institutional players—including Canada’s big banks, insurance and credit-card companies—seeking to maintain their market share, and there are startups and credit unions—some even propped up by the big players—looking to steal market share. At some point, the country needs to define what kind of innovation it wants to support: will it be incumbents trying to transform their businesses, or will it be the little guys seeking to disrupt them? Trying to please everyone pleases no one.”
Continue to the full article --> here
NCFA Canada's Open Banking Journey Series:
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
CFPB: US Consumer Agency Announces Open Banking Rule
Fintech Nexus | | Oct 25, 2022
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) director Rohit Chopra lobbed a surprise grenade onto the expo floor at Money 20/20 Tuesday morning by announcing plans for an open banking “doorman authority” rule.
Read: Rohit Chopra's speech for this announcement at money 20/20
- Ruling Initiative: “The CFPB will launch the process to activate a doorman authority under Section 1033 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act. The provisions provide for personal financial data rights for Americans but will only have teeth after the CFPB defines the specific store rules.
- While not explicitly open banking or open financial, the rule will move us closer by obligating financial institutions to share consumer data upon consumer requests, empowering people to break up with banks that provide that service and unleashing more market competition.”
- If successful, it will also reduce the ability for incumbents to build moats and for middlemen to serve as gatekeepers, providing big advantages to those who provide the best products, service quality, and rates, Chopra added.
- Chopra:
- The problem: The broader overall regime is broken because consumer access is based on a set of unstable and inconsistent norms across market participants. We have a number of highly concentrated sub-markets, credit reporting conglomerates, card networks, core processors, and more. It is absolutely critical that no one owns any critical infrastructure.
See: NCFA Open Banking Current State in Canada with Senator Colin Deacon and Mahi Sall
- Open Banking: Now, suppose a firm is required to make a person’s financial data available to them or to a third party acting on that consumer’s behalf through a secure method. In that case, we’ll be able to mitigate some of the problems that exist today. We expect to propose requiring financial institutions offering deposit accounts, credit cards, digital wallets, prepaid cards, and other transaction accounts to set up secure methods, like APIs for data sharing"
- Competition: “A competitive market would also lead to unbundling, where companies compete on individual products rather than relying on captive customers or cross-selling scams.”
- Expects deeper scrutiny of conglomerate security measures and protections.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Opinion: Canada’s Open Banking Governance Challenge
Canada Today | Claire Clarkson | Oct 21, 2022
Abraham Tachjian is the man Ottawa has hired to develop an open banking system that is expected to roll out in 2023. As the clock ticks, industry players give him an ear on how to get the job done; Canada’s open banking czar is feeling the heat.
- Open banking is a system that would allow consumers and small businesses to securely exchange their financial data between financial service providers such as banks and accredited fintechs. Also known as consumer-centric finance, it heralds the promise of giving Canadians more control over their finances while making it easier for them to switch lenders, open accounts and use new digital tools to manage their money.
- Governance a priority: Banks, credit unions and fintechs often have conflicting ideas about how to achieve these goals. But interestingly, there’s one issue they all seem to agree on these days: Tachjian-san needs to re-order his to-do list and bring governance to the top. Governance is about ensuring accountability and public trust in the coming open banking system.
- Mr. Tachjian’s governance challenge is to create an organization that oversees, implements and governs open banking across the country. Importantly, this entity is independent and accountable to the Canadian government and must provide consumers and small businesses with recourse should anything go wrong.
- Establishing a governance framework is usually the first step in creating a new organization or system. But this is Canada, folks. Our country is characterized by doing things in the wrong order and making short work of good governance. (Just look at how flawed governance caused the current crisis at Hockey Canada.)
Watch Video: NCFA Open Banking Governance with Senator Colin Deacon and Mahi Sall
Abraham Tachijian, Canada's Open Banking Lead
While policy work on the future of the system’s ongoing management and governance has been ongoing internally throughout this process, we have reached a point where we will shift our focus. Once we have addressed these key issues, we will liaise again with the working groups and convene additional steering group meetings as needed.
- Governance model in isolation from the four working committees: But it’s still problematic that some secret group of people in some backroom hatched the governance for open banking. This lack of transparency is worrying. Certainly, governance is a complex issue given the “diverging interests” of the various industry participants in an open banking system. But it was a mistake to continue working on the governance model in isolation from the four working groups. The governance model should have been established from the start to inform their work.
Governance should never be reverse engineered. Mr. Tachjian and the Ministry of Finance urgently need to bring this discussion to the fore. Otherwise, Canada risks putting the cart before the horse for open banking.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Work Trends: Employees Feel the Opposite but the ‘Data doesn’t lie’ | Women Leaving Companies at Highest Rate Ever
Fortune | Jane Thier | Oct 17, 2022
Managers and workers have the opposite opinions of remote work, Satya Nadella says, but the data doesn’t lie.
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella released latest Work Trends Study revealing a paradox:
- Employees: 87% of employees say they’re more productive when they work remotely or in a hybrid setup
- Employers: 85% of employers say it’s difficult to have confidence in their workers’ productivity levels when they’re not in-person.
See: Pros and Cons of a Distributed Workforce
- Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s VP of modern work:
- “While you might get a lot of data from tracking this type of employee activity, I can confidently say it’s the wrong data,” he wrote. “And surveillance doesn’t just lead to bad data—it undermines trust, a critical factor in organizational success that, once lost, is incredibly difficult to regain.
- Really make sure that you’re very clear, as leaders and managers, about what the goals of the company or the team are, setting the norms for how people collaborate, and communicate.
Continue to the full article --> here
CNBC Make It | Morgan Smith | Oct 18, 2022
'Disastrous': Women leaders are leaving companies at the highest rate ever
- According to new data from LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company: "Women in the Workplace" report, which surveyed 22,000 women and 18,000 men
- Increasingly important to women that they work for companies that prioritize career advancement, flexibility, employee well-being as well as diversity, equity and inclusion — and they're leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers when these needs aren't met.
-
Lareina Yee, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co.:
-
Let's be clear: Women aren't saying they don't want to work. They're breaking up with companies because they're confident they will get an opportunity to advance somewhere else, which is something we haven't seen before … it really speaks to the fact that loyalty has its limits.
-
See:
Reg CF in the U.S. Created 300,000 Jobs and Boon for Local Economies, Women. and Minorities Seeking Funding
Venture Capitalists Dislike Women More Than They Like Profit
- More than half (58%) of women under 30 say career advancement has become more important to them over the past two years, compared to 31% of women leaders.
- Gen Z and millennials value professional development opportunities more than other generations do, numerous studies have shown, and this consistently ranks as a top priority for younger generations when choosing a new employer.
It's a disastrous situation … you're not promoting enough women into the leadership ranks, and now you have more women leaving leadership roles
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
