Lenders run by algorithms and blockchain technology will require 21st century regulation
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: P2P, Lending, Digital Bonds, BNPL, Private Credit
How Banks, Fintechs, and Customers Win Together
Fintech Confidential | Michael King and Richard Nesbitt | Jan 21, 2021
In our recently published book The Technological Revolution in Financial Services: How Banks, Fintechs, and Customers Win Together, a group of expert contributors from North America and Europe share their insights on how the financial services industry will evolve in the coming decade. The context is the ongoing transformation in the financial services industry, which is being driven by three structural forces: heightened regulation that followed the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), innovation fueled by new technologies and entrepreneurial fintech startups, and demographic trends with the rise of millennials and the retirement of baby boomers.
These forces are changing the competitive landscape of financial services, lowering barriers to entry and increasing competition from both inside and outside the industry. Our book outlines what we see as the successful strategies for financial technology (fintech) companies and incumbents, namely banks, insurance companies, and asset managers.
While there is much to learn from our contributors, this article shares our main conclusion and a few key takeaways.
We argue that the winning strategy for the coming decade will be for banks, insurance companies and asset managers to partner with fintech startups to deliver a superior experience to end-customers.
The media has portrayed fintechs and financial incumbents as rivals. But the real threat over the coming is coming from outside the financial services industry – from large technology companies such as the Chinese techfins (Alibaba and Tencent) and North American bigtech companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Shopify). These global players have platform ecosystems with large and loyal customer bases, massive datasets on customer behavior, and well-known brands. Techfins and bigtech are bundling financial services with non-financial products to provide end-customers with the delightful, easy, convenient and lower cost experiences they desire.
See: Why Partnerships Are the Future for Fintech
Faced with these new entrants, we argue that incumbents need to partner with fintechs, combining their respective strengths to provide a better customer experience.
- Banks, insurance companies and asset managers are product-centric. These incumbents have millions of customers, expertise in risk management and compliance, funding and scale. But they view the world in terms of deposits, loans, payments, and investments. They see technology as a tool to reduce costs and increase profitability while meeting increased regulatory requirements. They are more focused on their shareholders than on understanding their end-customers.
- Fintech companies are customer-centric. Fintechs are better at understanding the customer’s needs and their financial journey. Fintechs leverage technology to solve customer pain points and offer a better value proposition. They have access to talent and are employing design thinking to develop innovative solutions that provide a delightful user experience.
So, the technological revolution highlighted in the title does not refer simply to the emergence of new technologies or the disruption from new entrants. It refers to a paradigm shift in financial services that refocuses on the end-customer, their experience and their lifetime journey.
Briefly, here are three more takeaways:
Technology is not a strategy, it is a tool for the execution of strategy.
Strategy is the answer to three questions: where is the organization today, where does it want to go in the future, and how will it get there. Technology can provide better tools for pursuing this strategy, but technological innovation is not the end goal of strategy itself. Technology does provide a sustainable competitive advantage; it is widely available and can be copied by competitors who are fast-followers. The biggest barrier to entry in banking is not technology or even regulation, but access to customers.
See: Does FinTech Substitute for Banks? Evidence from the Paycheck Protection Program
Trust in banking is paramount, supported by data security and privacy.
The loss of trust in incumbents following the GFC opened the door to new entrants including fintechs. But trust in financial services is intertwined with cybersecurity and data privacy. Cybersecurity has clearly become the biggest operational risk. The approach must be a shift in mindset from “if we are hacked” to “when we are hacked”. Finding it fast, disclosing it and dealing with it immediately, and minimizing the impact on customers will be critical. Data privacy is a second critical issue. Consumers and privacy advocates are acutely aware of the mixed incentives created by the advertising- based business models of Facebook and Google. This is one area where technology (such as blockchain) and new services (such as digital identity) can promote trust, by protecting customer data, privacy, and identity.
Open banking sits at the nexus of these concerns. We argue that the adoption of open banking -- in Canada and globally – will increase data security by putting in place a secure system for the transmission of data using application programming interfaces (APIs).
Regulation and risk management remain pillars of financial services.
See: The future of European payments: Strategic choices for banks
Regulation is not going away, nor should we want it to. Leading financial players – whether fintechs or incumbents – support higher regulatory requirements to weed out bad actors. We argue that maintaining a level playing field and avoiding regulatory arbitrage are important. Effective risk management will continue to be a driver of success in financial services. Incumbents possess this expertise. Fintechs and other new entrants will inevitably need to invest in risk management and compliance to be successful.
Authored by:
- Michael R. King, Lansdowne Chair in Finance, Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria
- Richard W. Nesbitt , CEO, Global Risk Institute in Financial Services
This article appears as a featured article in NCFA's digital magazine, Fintech Confidential (Issue 3 Dec 2020). Click to read the latest thought leadership, insights and trends about Fintech in Canada:
Checkout NCFA's digital magazine, Fintech Confidential (Issue 3, Dec 2020) --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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For Digital Assets, Private Markets Offer the Greatest Opportunities
Bain and Company | By Mike Kühnel, Thomas Olsen, John Fildes and Karl Gridl | Dec 16, 2020
Despite decades of technological advances, global capital markets remain characterized by fragmented and siloed networks, with limited interoperability between them. Reconciliation between systems requires extra, sometimes manual, steps. Many processes across the financial ecosystem thus continue to be prone to error and high costs. This applies to public markets but even more acutely to private markets.
See: 3 Ways Digital Assets Will Reshape The World
As a consequence, a consensus across the global financial ecosystem has emerged: Digitized financial assets and distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms will substantially improve transparency of information, automation, distribution and, ultimately, liquidity. Adoption of digital assets—assets and regulated financial securities that are represented digitally and administered on digital platforms—will expand beyond the first niche application of cryptocurrencies, with DLT removing many sources of inefficiency.
Exchanges, banks, technology companies and other financial market firms will need to make decisions soon about how to participate, as it takes time to build an economically attractive business model and the required capabilities and partnerships. Postponing this decision comes with the risk of losing strategic position as early movers gain share and replace or create new market infrastructure roles.
Despite uncertainty around the relevant legislation, dominant technologies and trustworthiness of some emerging firms in this space, we expect that digital assets will increasingly serve as substitutes for traditional financial products―not completely replacing them but rather operating side by side for many years. In the near term, DLT platforms can digitally represent traditional assets on a blockchain ledger to deliver more efficient administration, such as in managing collateral. But digital assets will also make inroads in issuance, trading, settlement, transfer and custody, because current systems for private assets involve expensive, manual tasks done by many intermediaries, resulting in cumbersome, duplicative and nontransparent processes.
Read: Self-driving Banking
Private market opportunities
In principle, any type of asset can be tokenized, in the sense that related rights of ownership or entitlement to cash flows, along with obligations, can be captured and stored via DLT. We have already seen oddities, such as shares in a professional athlete’s contract or fractional ownership of a painting. Yet while DLT has earned broad attention and support, the biggest opportunities do not lie in public markets, whose current technologies are fairly efficient and would be expensive and complicated to replace in the near term.
To be clear, digital assets are not a miracle that will make very small companies easy (or more desirable) to invest in. Nor will they circumvent retail investor protections by, say, allowing anyone to trade any private asset directly on a mobile app. Rather, the near-term breakthroughs consist of automating workflows and data ranging from capitalization tables to share transfers and dividend or interest payments. Digital asset platforms will bring benefits in efficiency and cost savings, accessibility and transparency. This, in turn, will enable new private capital market innovations to be more:
More Efficient: Digital platforms will allow alternative asset managers to create new, more efficient investment products with portfolios of tokenized private assets. Transfer and trading of private company shares currently have high documentation requirements for new shareholders, creating an administrative burden. Digital assets minimize that burden through smart contracts, where the terms of an agreement are programmable and thereby automated. Instead of settlement processes that take up to two weeks, embedded holder rights and an immutable record will ease verification of ownership, accelerate post-trade processes and remove intermediaries. Digital assets can also unlock more efficient settlement using digital fiat currency tokens and central bank digital currencies, as they become available.
See: Will the Law Keep Up with Smart Contracts in 2021?
More Accessibile: Automating capitalization tables through DLT will make private assets such as private company equity, debt and real estate much more efficient to administer. Efficiency also allows for new types of private capital products that will be more readily available to a broader set of investors―for example, through 401(k) retirement savings plans.
More Transparent: In the future, such platforms can be extended to help minimize costs and administrative tasks at the individual asset level. Transfer of equity tokens will also feature transparency of price and governance, including right of first refusal, proxy voting and divided payments. Automated administration would allow investors such as pension funds to more easily coinvest in specific parts or assets within a private equity fund portfolio.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Self-driving Banking
Financial Times | OpEd by Brian Brooks | Jan 12, 2021
Lenders run by algorithms and blockchain technology will require 21st century regulation
The writer is the US acting comptroller of the currency In 1961, Popular Science magazine envisioned self-driving cars.
The reality arrived sooner than anyone anticipated, and before safety regulators could adapt. Most automotive laws — on speed limits, giving signals, drink-driving — had been designed to protect against dangerous drivers, not dangerous cars. Autonomous vehicles brought new risks that legacy rules never considered. As one headline on the Wired website put it: “Who’s Regulating Self-Driving Cars? Often, No One”.
Banking is headed down the same road. And it’s being driven by the technology behind decentralised finance, or DeFi. But just as the original rules of the road protected us from other drivers, so our current bank regulations exist mainly to prevent human failings.
See: Intro to yield farming and the latest developments in DeFi
At the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, we require every bank to have officers responsible for its safety — such as a chief risk officer and a chief audit executive. We limit how much banks can lend to their directors. We even make some bank employees take a certain amount of vacation so others can sit at their desks and identify potential fraud. We call it bank regulation, but we’re really regulating bankers.
DeFi turns all this on its head. It leverages blockchain technology to deliver services with no human intermediation.
One example is creating money markets with algorithmically derived interest rates based on supply and demand — rates that traditional banks set by committee. Other DeFi projects include decentralised exchanges that allow users to trade without brokers, and protocols for lending that do not involve loan officers or credit committees. Although these “self-driving banks” are new, they are not small. They are likely to be mainstream before self-driving cars start to fly.
However, self-driving banks present the same challenges and opportunities as autonomous vehicles. On the opportunity side, they can allow savers to stop shopping around for the best interest rates by having algorithms do this for them. They can also end discrimination against certain borrowers by having software make credit decisions. They could even eliminate the risk of fraud or corruption by no longer being run by humans at all.
See: Interested in a High Interest Bitcoin Saving’s Account? Interview with Ledn CEO, Adam Reeds
Self-driving banks also present new risks, though. If technology accelerates withdrawal of depositors’ funds, just as high-frequency trading can accelerate equity sell-offs, that could increase liquidity risk compared with traditional banks. Asset volatility could be a concern for similar reasons. And the management of loan collateral could be more difficult if humans are not involved in valuations.
There is also a risk that, in the absence of federal regulatory clarity, US states rush to fill the void and create a patchwork of inconsistent rules that impede the orderly development of a national market. This is exactly what happened with self-driving cars. Federal regulators must therefore determine what a regulatory scheme for self-driving banks should look like. Could they ensure fair treatment of customers by such a bank? Sure.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Neo Financial Partners with Concentra Bank to Offer a CDIC-Eligible High-Interest Savings Account
Neo Financial and Concentra | Jan 13, 2021
CALGARY, Alberta--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Neo Financial (Neo), a Calgary-based fintech company created by two of the co-founders of SkipTheDishes, has announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration with Concentra Bank (Concentra), a Schedule 1 bank that is quietly fuelling innovation. Through this relationship, Neo is the first Canadian fintech company to offer a CDIC-eligible high-interest savings account that works like an everyday banking account. The accounts are held at Concentra, a Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) member bank. Together, Neo and Concentra have opened the door for innovation that has historically not been accessible within Canada’s consumer banking sector.
“Canada’s banking sector continues to trail other countries, using technology that is more than 50 years old, and unable to innovate. This is why we set out to rebuild it from scratch. We wanted to create a seamless consumer-first experience, specifically for Canadians,” says Andrew Chau, Founder and CEO, Neo Financial. “Our collaboration with Concentra Bank is a great example of how new technology companies can work with industry partners to innovate better and faster to ensure Canada doesn’t fall behind.”
“We’re different from many banks—we’re open to creative ideas and solutions for our customers and we’re less rigid in our approach to innovation, while managing regulatory requirements,” says Don Coulter, President & CEO of Concentra Bank. “Collaboration with fintechs is central to our strategy. We have a strong history of working with fintechs and will continue to do so. We’re proud to work with Neo Financial to bring this great new savings product to Canadians.”
See:
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Why Partnerships Are the Future for Fintech
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SkipTheDishes co-founders look to shake up banking as Neo Financial hits the market
Neo’s proprietary technology has been designed to simplify finances and create rewarding experiences for Canadians. Neo Savings is a high-interest savings account that can be opened in minutes from your phone, and presently earns up to 30 times more* than other traditional Canadian banks.
“Our team is dedicated to creating a cultural shift in how Canadians bank. This means not only modernizing the current consumer experience, but rethinking the institution as a whole. Through collaboration with organizations like Concentra Bank, I believe the future of Canadian banking will be accessible, empowering and innovative in ways we haven’t thought possible. I hope Canadians are as excited as we are to create this change and build something substantial here in Canada,” says Andrew.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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The Rise in Big Tech and Fintech Credit
NCFA | Samuel He | Jan 13, 2021
As a Gen Z, technology has played a big role in my everyday life ever since I was young and now as a remote intern at NCFA, I’m excited to share some research and insights on Big Tech and Fintech credit markets.
Big Tech and its expanding dominance
Lending institutions such as banks and credit unions have traditionally been the chief sources of finance in most economies in the world, however large technology firms are uniquely positioned to capitalize on a technology-focused alternative to financial services. Their advanced AI and machine learning capabilities allow these companies to utilize the swaths of data that their user base generates to tailor prices, determine creditworthiness, and screen loans. Amazon’s e-commerce sales for example, reached a staggering $416.48 billion in 2020. As online channels expand due to general trends and the global pandemic, they pose an existential thread to traditional brick and mortar models. UBS analysts estimate that 75,000 brick-and-mortar stores could be forced into closure by 2026.
See: Walmart to launch fintech startup with partner Ribbit Capital
Companies like Walmart have seen their supply-side economies of scale diminished by competing and efficient online marketplaces that operate with lower overheads forcing them to integrate more technology into their business model. Walmart has already taken several steps in the Fintech credit direction. One is the creation of Walmart Pay, a payment app that enables shoppers to transact at the register via QR code. Other methods adopted include a prepaid card plan with Walmart MoneyCard and a money transfer service with Walmart2Walmart.
Global Alternative Credit Trends
As illustrated in the chart below, there has been a surge in popularity in Fintech and Big Tech credit – collectively known as alternative credit – reaching an estimate of 795 billion USD globally in 2019. While alternative credit has been on rise collectively, the data shows that global Fintech credit volumes have declined between 2017-2019 from an estimate of 410 billion to 223 billion USD. One major factor for this decline is due to the greater regulatory developments in China. In the same period, Big Tech credit growth has surged at a more rapid pace than the previous years, rising from an estimate of 197 billion in 2017 to 572 billion USD in 2019.
P2P Lending and Fintech Credit in the U.S.
Interestingly while Big Tech seems to be the dominant player globally in recent years, Fintech credit is much more prevalent in the US, accounting for nearly 89% of the total US alternative credit. Research shows that the Fintech credit market in the US is primarily made up of P2P/marketplace consumer lending with investment coming predominantly from institutional investors rather than individual lenders.
Fintech credit describes credit activity facilitated by online platforms that are not operated by commercial banks. One popular form of Fintech credit is peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, where borrowers are matched directly with investors through a lending platform.
See: Google Pay’s massive relaunch makes it an all-encompassing money app
Traditionally, one's FICO score has been the gold standard of credit bureaus in determining one's ability to open a bank account, obtain a loan, or get a credit card. Now, with the ability to process lots of data at high levels of efficiency thanks to machines, Fintech companies are creating more holistic creditworthiness rating systems that help alternative lenders better assess risks and serve up loans to a segment of the population that traditionally has been shut out of markets.
Prediction for Future
Given Big Tech and Fintech’s competitive advantages with machine learning and AI, I believe that they will play an inevitable role in the future of financial services. This type of competitive edge that Big Tech companies have make them ideally positioned to serve the role of a Techfin, a term coined by Jack Ma describing tech companies that provide financial services with a more customer & technology centric approach.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the paradigm shift in the financial technology space. Growing numbers of people consider the adoption of contactless payment as a basic need to prevent the spread of the virus, and I predict the rise of many forms of Fintech innovations like mobile wallets replacing physical wallets.
See:
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House Lawmakers Condemn Big Tech’s ‘Monopoly Power’ and Urge Their Breakups
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China Stops Jack Ma’s $35 Billion Ant IPO From Going Ahead
Given the size, resources and efficiencies of Big Tech and the increasing potential of Fintech, incumbent institutions are likely feeling the heat to re-align their products and services to benefit tech-savvy consumers across the board, not just us Gen Zs. Incumbents like Chase have already taken steps in this direction by investing heavily in their digital space to offer a more unified experience for the customer. As a passionate technology user, I am eager to see what the future has in store.
This article appears as a featured article in NCFA's digital magazine, Fintech Confidential (Issue 3 Dec 2020). Click to read the latest thought leadership, insights and trends about Fintech in Canada:
Checkout NCFA's digital magazine, Fintech Confidential (Issue 3, Dec 2020) --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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MPs warn buy now, pay later firms ‘could be the next Wonga’
The Guardian | Kalyeena Makortoff | Jan 12, 2021
More than 70 cross-party MPs are calling for regulation of buy now, pay later firms such as Klarna and Clearpay, which they say could be “the next Wonga waiting to happen.”
The group is planning to table an amendment to the financial services bill on Wednesday that would force the Treasury to introduce regulations within three months of the bill being passed. MPs hope the accelerated timeline will prevent some consumers from falling into debt.
Companies including Clearpay, Laybuy and industry leader Klarna have taken online shopping by storm, allowing customers to stagger payments for products such as clothes and furniture with no interest or fees – unless they fail to pay back on time.
The model has proved popular among millennials and Gen Z shoppers and their use has grown during lockdown. Shoppers are using the schemes 35% more often than before the pandemic, according to Comparethemarket.com, while 27% said they were turning to the service because they could not afford the purchase outright.
“Many people have [financially] overcommitted themselves using buy now, pay later companies, and we are facing mass redundancies, furloughing, and drops in income. So even if you think you could afford it now, you might not be able to later,” Creasy said.
The Financial Conduct Authority is conducting a review into buy now, pay later firms, but MPs worry the lengthy process could push regulation out by another 18 months and leave consumers without protection during the Covid crisis and one of the worst economic downturns on record.
See: Global Survey on Impact of Covid-19 and Recession Risk: Fintech and Financial Institutions
“The lesson from Wonga is the longer we take to act, the more people get into unaffordable debt. It’s not by accident that these companies make money from people sending more than they can afford,” Creasy said.
Laybuy’s managing director, Gary Rohloff, said he was broadly in favour of regulation but said it was a “complete misrepresentation” to draw similarities with the payday lending industry. He said customers typically borrow around £65, which is paid back over six weekly and interest-free instalments. It also conducts credit checks to ensure customers can afford to pay in the first place.
“If the government decides to regulate, then we feel the high standards we already maintain place us in a good position,” he said.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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NCFA’s Fintech Confidential Issue 3 (Dec 2020) is here! Happy Holidays…
NCFA | Craig Asano | Dec 17, 2020
Dear Global Fintech & Funding Communities,
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA) and partners are excited to present Vol. 1 Issue 3, FINTECH CONFIDENTIAL, a digital pop-up of the 6th annual 2020 Fintech & Financing Conference and Expo (FFCON20) held virtually across themed 8 weeks from July 9 to August 27 and co-hosted by NCFA and Toronto Finance International.
The main theme of FFCON20 was “RISE”, reflecting the joint efforts of the two associations, NCFA and TFI, to build and increase the success and sustainability of Canada’s fintech and financial sector. There were many moving parts this year and a brand-new digital format with the event bringing together 100+ thought leaders, 50+ partners, and more than 500 attendees, 2 challenges and the inaugural Fintech Draft pitching and demo competitions. Congratulations to the winners: SolidBlock and MazumaGo (formerly DivDot)! Thanks to all the partners, speakers, attendees, volunteers and the entire organizing team for making FFCON20 an impactful and amazing online experience for Canada’s fintech and funding community.
Despite a challenging year for many, the fintech industry continues to demonstrate its resilience, creative capacity, and thirst to create valuable partnerships and financial products/services that benefit millions of consumers, small businesses, and the economy. As covid accelerates the adoption of digital trends, it has spotlighted the social and economic gaps that saw fintechs pivot to work on supportive solutions from mobilizing low-cost capital campaigns to personal finance apps that help users better manage their finances, spending, savings, and investment habits.
Digital identity, CBDCs (and digital assets), AI, and sustainable finance are all taking off as governments and industry work to collaborate on overhauling Canada’s digital infrastructure, data rights, privacy and standards that will set the stage for years to come. The second round of open banking consultations that were delayed due to the pandemic were suddenly announced in November with many organizations, fintechs and incumbent banks coming together to discuss the scope, governance, implementation, and accreditation of a made in Canada OB solution. We urge the OB committee to remain laser-focused on consumer interests while looking globally for insights to implement a principles-based, inclusive, broad-scoped and competitive framework as swiftly as possible.
We hope you enjoy this issue of Fintech Confidential magazine – it certainly makes for great holiday reading! While everyone relentlessly strives to achieve success in 2021, we encourage you to bring in the new year with good health and to be mindful that we are all in this together, and to help others in your community more than ever before. Peace, happiness, and best wishes for an incredible year and journey ahead.
All the best
Craig Asano
Founder and CEO
NCFA Canada
Check out the magazine --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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