Digital technology showcased new ways for brands to communicate successfully with consumers during the pandemic, even removing the need for human input in some areas. But which changes here to stay?
When it comes to picking the brands you support, many factors can come into play. Sustainability and ethical consumption might be high on your list of priorities. Alternatively, low costs and quick delivery times might be the number-one factor for you.
However you feel, the pandemic changed how we interact with brands, as we had no choice but to go online for everything. As companies have necessarily responded to the influx of online shoppers over the past two years, our relationships with brands and shopping have also evolved.
Most brands realise that customer experience is part of the competitive landscape, so they need to constantly adapt to changing customer expectations. Tech has played a major role in the changes we see in customer behaviour. Consumers don’t want technological change but if it brings a better experience, they are drawn to it for the psychological reward
This is confirmed by the findings of an Acquia consumer experiences trend report,Digital Experiences in Disruptive Times, in which 77% of UK respondents said their digital experience with brands has changed, with 43% of UK consumers buying more online than before the pandemic. The fact that 48% of organisations surveyed said they created more content for customer engagement is revealing. According to a survey by the McKinsey Institute, the pandemic accelerated the adoption of digitalisation in customer and supply-chain communications by three to four years.
“The familiar and frictionless nature of the purchase means that little conscious effort is required to make it,” he says.
“In 2022, the best thing a brand can do is give a customer the sense that you’re reflecting their identity and their identity is aligned with your brand’s values,” says Hunter. “If you can tap into customers’ aspirations and give them an authentic experience then I think you’re in really good shape.”
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
Action is critical given the importance of small business to the economy
The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association announced a record total of venture financings in 2021 — $14.7 billion. However, excluding the venture financings related to the public listings of eight large tech companies, the total was in line with the steady, modest annual financings in the past four years. And private company deals totalled $18.1 billion last year, well below annual private financings from 2017 to 2019.
The domestic private equity markets have failed to keep pace with the financing needs of existing and new businesses amid a steadily growing economy and the transition to digitalization. Further, the large and growing institutional fund sector accounts for a declining share of domestic private investment. Few large investment funds have established specialized private equity funds to meet early-stage funding demand.
The Ontario Capital Markets Modernization Taskforce in 2019–20 made path-breaking initiatives for more efficient securities regulations, new proxy rules and structural reforms. Steps like consolidating the self-regulatory system, and concepts like open access to the product shelves of large financial institutions will improve the effectiveness of regulated small financial institutions.
However, the task force should be reformed to be national in scope, expanding membership to all regions and widening accountability to provincial governments and the federal government.
As the task force resumes its work nearly two years after its initial proposals, the status of, and possible changes to, the original recommendations should be assessed.
Small financial institutions, many with limited research capability, need access to quality financial information on private companies for investment. A regulatory framework to facilitate the exchange of information among individual angel investors through not-for-profit angel investor groups is a way forward. Further, the task force could consider a version of the Curated Capital platform developed and implemented by the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) Association in the United Kingdom, which advises the government on private investment. Curated Capital matches participating investment firms to eligible startup and small companies through a rating system, enabling small dealers and funds to invest in and build diversified investments of private companies.
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
I carefully guard my family time. I am home for dinner with my wife and children every night (unless I’m out of town). I put my phone on our foyer table when I arrive home, and it stays there until the kids go to sleep. I don’t take work calls on weekends unless it’s an absolute emergency. It’s easy to take family for granted and allow yourself to get pulled into never-ending work demands.
It takes discipline to switch gears and focus on your partner and children. But the work demands will never ever stop. And your family time is both precious and fleeting. So I invest time in the upstream work – hiring really great people, establishing clear goals, and giving the team the autonomy to execute as they see fit. That way, when I come home, I don’t have to worry that the company will collapse if I step away for a few hours.
Staying fit - mentally, emotionally and physically
All founders need to create strategies to stay fit. You don’t want your company to implode simply because you never carved out time to exercise or sleep.
Find founder peers at the same stage as you, or slightly ahead. Develop relationships with other entrepreneurs who’ll understand what you’re going through and the problems you need help with. Your friends and family can offer general moral support, but none of them will really get it the way a fellow founder will.
Follow the “oxygen mask” rule. You know the old flight-safety advisory: “Place your mask over your own mouth and nose before assisting others.” You can’t help your company if you’re not able to perform at your best. Create routines to stay physically, emotionally, and mentally fit.
Take vacations. You’re going to feel like you can’t. But [just like you might need to pause in order to upgrade a system or process], sometimes you will need to upgrade yourself, even if it means stepping away from the company (which won’t slow down because you’ve built a well-oiled machine that runs well without you, right?) so you can recharge your batteries and get energized for the next leg.
Every business is different - don’t keep up with the Joneses
In competitive auto racing, they teach drivers to “focus on the road, not the wall.” Look at the wall and you’ll crash. To win, you need to keep your eye where you want the car to go. I share the same principle with new founders: Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing or how they’re performing. Just focus on your own road, your own race.
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
Last week’s federal budget could be seen as a pivotal one, at least directionally for the emphasis it put on economic growth. “Now is the time to focus — with smart investments and a clarity of purpose — on growing the economy,” it boldly pronounced in the foreword. To the surprise of many, the words “productivity” and “innovation” even made their way into the budget plan several times. The first step to solve any problem is acknowledging one exists and, as such, the government deserves ample credit.
Where it disappointed was on the two flagship measures proclaimed as solutions to the problem: a $15-billion growth fund and a yet-to-be defined Innovation and Investment Agency that will provide “advice.” The issue with these instruments and structures is they already exist in various forms — or have been tried before — and for the most part, their track records on boosting innovation and productivity are very questionable.
How will these two flagship initiatives be different from the Strategic Innovation Fund and the Net-Zero Accelerator Fund that were presented in previous budgets as growth funds? And how will they accomplish anything different from the multiple layers of existing programs and funding at the National Research Council, the Canadian Infrastructure Bank, the Business Development Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, the Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative, etc? Crowding out is an outdated — and wrong — way to think about industrial policy.
No matter what financial instrument is deployed, public “investments” won’t produce better outcomes if we don’t change the way we think, incentivize, and produce innovation. Being content with incremental innovation and technological adoption means Canada is leaving a considerable amount of economic wealth on the table to other countries.
Innovation economics is about amassing and leveraging intellectual capital into commercial assets. To only “adopt technology” means we will always be rentiers. This idea that Canada is great at invention but only needs reinforcement at the commercialization phase is false and misguided.
Just look at our record on patents creation over the last decade. Take artificial intelligence as an example: how can we be so good at R&D and so ordinary at reaping the commercial benefits at scale at a time when venture capital (VC) investing in Canada has reached historic levels? How will a new growth fund solve this?
Science and technology form the modern frontier of competitiveness and we need a capacity to better compete for new ideas and technologies. But Canada has an organizational structure for science that has not adapted to the 21st century. Our capacity to do industrial research at scale is almost nonexistent and our technology transfer mechanisms have not kept pace with developments in the creation of knowledge. There is still an overreliance on incremental innovation or safe bets. Ask yourself where we would be without mRNA vaccines or how we will reduce emissions to reach our climate targets.
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
Craig brings over 20 years of experience as a marketing strategist, software technologist and start-up entrepreneur in technology, finance, manufacturing and real estate sectors. He founded the National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA Canada), a nationally organized non-profit that is Canada’s dynamic and inclusive advocate for the advancement of fintech, open finance, capital markets innovation, digital assets and currencies, P2P, crowdfinance and emerging technologies such Blockchain and AI that are transforming the future of financial services. Craig advocated for and is a key contributor to the birth of disruptive online financing marketplaces, and the P2P Fintech economy in Canada. Learn more about NCFA.
After a successful career in international banking, he immigrated to Canada in 2010 and chose the entrepreneurial path in finance and investing. He embarked on a mission to create the New Capital Market – Democratizing funding and investing in private companies. In 2013, Peter-Paul founded FrontFundr to address the challenge that young companies face in generating capital and to unlock investing in private companies to the wider community, the public. FrontFundr is now Canada’s leading online funding and investment platform in the private capital markets. For more info please visit the website.
Alan started his career as a software developer/scientist and identified Ethereum early as a game-changer, and envisioned a decentralized future powered by blockchain. He’s implemented enterprise technology-driven business transformations, and was a capital markets and credit risk systems executive at a global bank. Alan founded Token Funder Inc., a Canadian leader in exempt market digital securities investing and trading, and is business building this venture. He launched Canada's first regulatory-compliant security token on Ethereum public blockchain; 1st security token as an EMD (@TokenGX); 1st secondary market security token trading platform for private markets (FreedomX). For more info please visit the website.
Securities Lawyer and Advisor, Founder of Venture Law Corporation who works with privately-held and public companies, mergers and acquisitions, private placement investments, financial transactions, reverse mergers, initial public offerings and licensing matters, as well as general corporate matters. For more info please visit the website.
Sherwood Neiss, is a Principal at Crowdfund Capital Advisors and a Partner at Crowd Capital Ventures. He’s a serial entrepreneur and investor and was instrumental in helping the JOBS Act get passed. He created the first database that aggregates all online investment offerings under the JOBS Act including research and analysis of securities-based crowdfunding (used by the SEC and policy makers) and works to support local economies right across the United States. For more info please visit the website.
Crowdfund Insider is the leading news and information web site covering the emerging global industry of disruptive finance including crowdfunding and peer-to-peer / marketplace lending. Recognizing the overlapping aspects of the new forms of finance, Crowdfund Insider’s coverage includes both rewards and investment based segments of crowdfunding. The site provides extensive coverage, and industry leading perspective, from a team of staff writers and leading industry expert contributors from around the world. For more info please visit the website.
Kim Wales is a securities-based crowdfunding, P2P online lending, and digital banking pioneer. She brings a deep and broad background in corporate governance, risk management, and banking regulation. Ms. Wales is an author, adjunct professor, and business owner. Since 2017, Ms. Wales is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CrowdBureau Corporation, which provides rules-based stock indices for financial products such as ETFs and managed account platforms. The Company also provides research, data analytics, and risk management tools for the peer-to-peer lending and digital banking industry. Kim has been cited over 100 times in U.S. Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, 2012 final rules for Titles III (Regulation Crowdfunding) and IV (Regulation A+). Kim is also an author and adjuct professor and sits on several boards. For more info please visit the website.
About this episode:
10 years ago in 2012, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) was signed into law in the U.S. (and eventually a similar exemption was approved in Canada) to encourage more capital to flow to startups, support innovation, and, create jobs. It's significance cannot be understated as the rule change allowed private companies to raise capital by selling securities digitally for the first time via registered online platforms and dealer-brokers. Regulation crowdfunding also democratized previously excluded retail investors (non-accredited) by allowing them to invest directly in startup ventures empowering a new era of digital finance.
A tremendous amount of advocacy and regulatory change efforts took place to make this happen, and since then the original JOBS Act rules have been improved for investment crowdfunding in the U.S., such as increasing the fundraising cap from US$1 million to US$5 million (not in Canada though, we've asked for years ahem).
But there are still many challenges and myths to be debunked. While venture financings are at an all time high in sectors like fintech, it does not mean that startups are awash with capital. While there is growing interest among retail investors to participate directly in these offerings, and take control of their investment future, education and awareness still remains a top priority if industry is to grow in the right ways. Having said that, in the United States, RegCF recently surpassed $1billion raised. Canadian figures are more modest with at least $100 million in equity financings raised on a leading platform.
Today there's also a JOBS Act 2022 proposal on the table but will these changes be sufficient to support evolving technologies and their capabilities while also protecting investors? Regulatory change is slow and regulators should support innovation and competition. All stakeholders need to continue to support efforts to make capital markets whole, so EVERYONE can benefit from the advancements in technology or the wealth gap will continue to widen.
This is a not to be missed episode for anyone interested in the past or future of digital finance and capital markets. Join investment crowdfunding pioneers in both Canada and the U.S. who discuss the 10 year journey from a wide variety of perspectives including the evolution of first generation marketing platforms to the arrival of second generation decentralized finance models powered by blockchain technologies.
Duration: 92mins
Timestamps:
00:00:00 NCFA Fintech Fridays Intro 00:00:17 Craig Asano, NCFA Canada 00:02:06 Andrew Dix, Crowded Media Group 00:02:49 Sherwood 'Woodie' Neiss, Crowdfund Capital Advisors 00:03:32 Kim Wales, CrowdBureau Corp 00:04:23 Alixe Cormick, Venture Law Corporation 00:04:13 Peter-Paul Van Hoeken, FrontFundr 00:05:48 Alan Wunsche, Tokenfunder 00:08:21 RegCF advocacy (SEC, Congress, White House) 00:10:47 Designing the framework 00:11:58 Purpose of the JOBS Act 00:15:10 Road to Equity Crowdfunding in Canada: Change is hard (and long) 00:26:22 Blockchain finance: education and regulatory challenges 00:33:38 Crowdfunding’s Impact and opportunity: first US$1 billion 00:38:39 RegCF to digital finance 00:41:57 Evolution of digital finance Gen1 to Gen2 00:49:23 Digitalizing private capital markets 00:55:03 Ontario’s exemption 45-108 setup to fail 00:59:46 JOBS Act 2022 bill proposed to improve rules in the U.S. 01:00:10 Canada harmonizes equity crowdfunding rules Sep 2021 01:04:00 Educating regulators 01:06:00 Regulators need to support innovation and competition 01:09:00 Financial inclusion 01:11:00 Canadian ECF $100 million and beyond 01:17:00 Decentralized Finance is the future 01:19:00 Convergence and reducing wealth gaps 01:23:00 Regulatory culture change and sandbox 01:25:00 Capital markets need to work for everyone 01:30:00 Closing remarks
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
Conference hosted by the BIS Innovation Hub and the Swiss National Bank, 4 April, 2022, Zurich, Switzerland. This conference aims to establish a common understanding on how DeFi-based markets might evolve from their current state, what role central banks might have, and the potential interaction with Central Bank Digital Currencies.
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
Thank you, Barry [Miller]. Thank you also to Professor Ajai Singh. It is a pleasure to be part of the University of Central Florida’s inaugural FinTech Summit. This morning, I would like to discuss the ways in which financial regulators ought to engage with innovation. Before I begin, I will give my standard disclaimer: the views I express are my own and not necessarily those of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) or my fellow Commissioners.
1. Embrace both skepticism and wonder.
People are skeptical of new things, including innovations that end up transforming their lives. Regulators share this fundamental human trait. Just as other people, regulators like dealing with known quantities: a rulebook they have mastered; familiar regulated entities that know and love the rulebook almost as well as the regulators do; and time-tested technologies and business processes that fit neatly into that rulebook. But this affection for the familiar is typically even more pronounced among regulators. For one thing, regulatory agencies draw very smart and talented, but risk-averse, employees, many of whom are lawyers, a profession not known to be entrepreneurial; I can say so in this crowd of engineers and business people.[7]
For another, regulators generally operate under incentives that make them look skeptically at the unknown and the new: They are rarely rewarded for innovation, and any performance metrics generally measure their productivity in numbers of rules, exams, or enforcement actions. Doing things the way they have always been done—which is probably also the way that saw the regulator’s predecessors off to a happy, fulfilling retirement—seldom carries significant risk. Departure from tried-and-true methods, on the other hand, creates all sorts of risks.
2. Welcome the role technology can play in meeting important regulatory objectives.
If regulators approach technology with a sense of wonder, not fear, they might also spot ways in which it makes it easier to accomplish regulatory objectives such as investor protection and market integrity. Let us look at a couple examples.
While we do not have time to talk in depth about crypto today, it too offers opportunities to better achieve certain regulatory objectives. Decentralized finance (“DeFi”) can serve investor protection goals and market resilience goals by cutting out middlemen from financial transactions and breaking down concentration within the financial services industry. Moreover, in a recent article, Professor Chris Brummer imagines using “crypto-native solutions,” such as smart contracts, non-fungible tokens, decentralized autonomous organizations, and Decentralized Identifiers to build a retail-oriented disclosure system that would be superior to existing traditional disclosure systems in that it would provide disclosures in a form and manner that people would actually use.[26] The objective, as he puts it, is to allow “disclosure systems [to] grow with technology instead of being superseded by it.”[27] Yes, crypto raises some real challenges and risks for society, but it also may help society to achieve some of the things the SEC cares about—protecting investors, facilitating capital formation, and fostering market integrity.
3. Allow, and indeed encourage, trial-and-error, rather than insist on check-the-box compliance.
If innovation is to thrive in a regulated space, regulation needs to leave room for experimentation, tinkering, and, yes, failure.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler has said, “I am technology-neutral. I think that [crypto] technology has been and can continue to be a catalyst for change, but technologies don’t last long if they stay outside of the regulatory framework.”[31] Describing this approach as technology-neutral, of course, works only if new technology can in fact comply with a prescriptive rule set designed for old technology, which is not at all clear.[32 Even if it can work, though, technologies forced into an inflexible, stultifying regulatory framework may not last long either because they cannot go through the trial-and-error process that allows them to mature and thrive. In other words, it is not enough to say that we welcome innovation; we also have to welcome the conditions under which innovation is possible.
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
Digital technology showcased new ways for brands to communicate successfully with consumers during the pandemic, even removing the need for human input in some areas. But which changes here to stay?
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. 
Action is critical given the importance of small business to the economy
This is an excerpt from 
Last week’s federal budget could be seen as a pivotal one, at least directionally for the emphasis it put on economic growth. “Now is the time to focus — with smart investments and a clarity of purpose — on growing the economy,” it boldly pronounced in the foreword. To the surprise of many, the words “productivity” and “innovation” even made their way into the budget plan several times. The first step to solve any problem is acknowledging one exists and, as such, the government deserves ample credit.
Conference hosted by the BIS Innovation Hub and the Swiss National Bank, 4 April, 2022, Zurich, Switzerland. This conference aims to establish a common understanding on how DeFi-based markets might evolve from their current state, what role central banks might have, and the potential interaction with Central Bank Digital Currencies.
Thank you, Barry [Miller]. Thank you also to Professor Ajai Singh. It is a pleasure to be part of the University of Central Florida’s inaugural FinTech Summit. This morning, I would like to discuss the ways in which financial regulators ought to engage with innovation. Before I begin, I will give my standard disclaimer: the views I express are my own and not necessarily those of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) or my fellow Commissioners.
