Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Liquid Avatar Technologies | Cara Buckspan | Apr 26, 2021

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / April 26, 2021 / Liquid Avatar Technologies Inc. (CSE:LQID)(OTC PINK:TRWRF)(FRA:4T51) ("Liquid Avatar Technologies" or the "Company") a global blockchain, digital identity and fintech solutions company, is excited to announced that it has launched the KABN Prepaid Visa Card in Canada, powered by the XTM Inc. (PAID)(XTMIF) payment platform and its sponsoring financial institution.
Liquid Avatar Technologies has begun to roll out the program in Canada and has plans to expand its card program rollout to other geographic regions subject to all necessary approvals. The KABN Prepaid Visa Card and Card App will provide users with a host of services similar to those of major financial institutions. Additionally, the KABN Prepaid Visa Card will integrate seamlessly with the Liquid Avatar mobile App, providing qualified Liquid Avatar App users with an easy way to apply for and access their KABN Prepaid Visa Card directly from the Liquid Avatar mobile App.
KABN cardholders will automatically be entitled to participate in KABN KASH, an exclusive and customized consumer experience where users can earn cash back on transactions with over 400 major online merchants, like Chapters Indigo, Walmart, Lenovo, Sephora, Viator, Nike and others. Liquid Avatar mobile App users that also have a KABN Prepaid Visa Card will, from time to time, receive additional bonus offers.
As part of its onboarding strategy for KABN Prepaid Visa Cardholders, the Company's state of the art, Verifiable Credentials Ecosystem, will provide users with a digital identity verification and validation services at no charge. Thus, allowing them to prove their identity continuously without the hassle of verifying time and time again to a growing list of online service providers and other value-based programs. In turn, validated users are qualified, subject to permissions and necessary approvals, for unique and customized financial services other value-based opportunities via KABN KASH.
According to Prepaid Cards Canada (Payments Canada 2020) Canadian Payments: Methods and Trends 2020, in 2019, prepaid cards, either plastic or virtual, grew significantly at the Point of Sale ("POS") with respectively, an 8% increase in volume and a 6% increase in value.
Nearly one in five Canadians either purchased or received at least one prepaid card per month. Young adults, those aged 18 to 34, and unbanked Canadians are the most common users of prepaid payments products. This is driven by a lack of access and acceptance of traditional banking products and services. Prepaid cards are starting to be used by a wider base, as those who seek security and identity protection for purchases have turned to prepaid cards as an alternative to cash. As prepaid cards are not directly linked to user account information, they offer an electronic method of payment that carries many of the benefits of cash.
A recent study found that 70 per cent of Canadians are more concerned about fraud today than they were five years ago, which can drive more consumers towards prepaid cards to minimize the risks that come with sharing financial information online or using cards directly linked to banking accounts. The use of prepaid cards has been accelerated by emerging e-commerce and mobile payments trends. Prepaid cards accounted for 10 per cent of e-commerce payments in 2019.
Canadians were three times more likely to use a prepaid payment for e-commerce than they were at physical POS merchant locations. The growing use of mobile payments also plays a significant role in accelerating prepaid card use. In 2019, 80 per cent of prepaid POS purchases were made using closed-loop store cards, with a notable number of prepaid purchases being linked to mobile devices and virtual prepaid cards. Over a quarter of Canadians (28 per cent) used at least one prepaid virtual card. The use of prepaid cards at these establishments is directly linked with rewards and loyalty programs that drive consumer usage.
"The KABN Prepaid Visa Card will give Canadian users access to unique value programs helping to enhance their spending power wherever Visa is accepted, in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide," said Michael Konikoff, Chief Revenue Officer of Liquid Avatar Technologies. "We are excited to be launching this pivotal part of our fintech network and to be working with XTM to accelerate our joint business efforts in Canada."
"Liquid Avatar Technologies' unique business model creates opportunity to convert a growing number of qualified, authenticated users into active program participants," said Marilyn Schaffer, CEO, XTM. "We expect to see rapid growth of this dynamic user base throughout Canada."
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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Association of Corporate Treasurers | March 2021

Over the past several decades, payments have become faster, cheaper, more secure and more reliable. Cheques used to take days in the mail and then days to clear once deposited. International funds transfers would pass through several banks, each taking a ‘lifting’ fee as the funds slowly passed from originator to recipient. Fortunately, those days are over.
Transaction settlement times have declined from weeks (the cheque is in the mail) to days to minutes. Only a couple of years ago, same-day settlement was hailed as a breakthrough. Now, the target is 10 seconds or less and many closed networks are achieving that fairly consistently, something that is now being called ‘immediate payments’.
Central banks, commercial banks and payment networks are racing to make payments even speedier. This is all very good, since timing delays in payments and their accompanying information create risk and uncertainty as well as wreaking havoc with cash forecasts and liquidity cushions.
In the US, the Federal Reserve launched its Faster Payments Task Force with this statement: “The task force calls upon all stakeholders to seize this historic opportunity to realise the vision for a payment system in the United States that is faster, ubiquitous, broadly inclusive, safe, highly secure and efficient by 2020.”
Around the globe, the UK announced its Faster Payments Service in 2008. In 2017, the European Central Bank (ECB) kicked off its TIPS program (TARGET Instant Payment Settlement) with the goal of instant payments 24/7 within the euro area. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority launched the Faster Payments System initiative in 2018.
Curiously and embarrassingly, however, securities settlement times around the globe remain prehistoric in this faster-immediate payments context. Stocks, bonds and most mutual funds settle in a T+2 framework, two days. That’s business days – so add in two more days for the weekend.
The success of faster payments is one of the most important financial market breakthroughs of our time.
No doubt, payments are becoming faster, cheaper, more secure and more universal. The benefits of these initiatives are immense.
This technology advancement will help a multitude of industries such as online gaming centres where people want to play safe and want fast and easy cash out, withdrawals & deposit methods.
No review of the payments landscape would be complete without acknowledging the role of cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, in payments. Indeed, there have been a couple of notable corporations announcing their acceptance of Bitcoin for payments. It’s very early in the game, but with central banks now exploring Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), expect to see these payments evolve in a material way.
There are two major obstacles at present and we are watching developments closely:
How these two challenges are resolved will determine the ultimate utility of cryptocurrencies as payment vehicles.
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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MazumaGo | Miri Radar | Apr 1, 2021

Fintech start-up MazumaGo kicked off 2021 by closing its seed funding round. The Victoria-based company raised over $800,000 led by Angel Investment Fund eFund. The round also included notable investments from Mother Trucker Capital (Hyperwallet) and Ryan Holmes from Hootsuite.
“We initially invested last year and closely worked with the MazumaGo team over the past 12 months and equally important: became active users of the payment platform which really solved a lot of our problems raising capital and distributing gains quickly and efficiently” - Pieter Dorsman, CFO & Director eFund
MazumaGo disrupts the Canadian B2B payments sector by giving businesses a simple and secure solution to process payments online without transfer limits. These funds will be used to invest in marketing and sales campaigns and hire additional business development and software staff.
“Over the past year, we added some critical features and improvements to our software that allow us to scale customer acquisition in 2021. This investment helps us drive growth while keeping up a steady level of software development.” - Matthew Smith, Co-Founder & CEO
What’s more, MazumaGo was just named an “Emerging Rocket” on the Ready to Rocket list by Rocket Builders. Ready to Rocket is a unique business recognition list that profiles technology companies with the greatest potential for revenue growth. Each year, based on analysis of trends that will drive growth in the information technology sector, Rocket Builders identifies the top private companies that are best positioned to capitalize on the trends for growth.
MazumaGo is solving a huge pain point for Canadian businesses which are still reliant on manual processes and paper cheques to process high-value payments. While consumers have consistently adopted digital payment methods like Interac eTransfer over the past decade, the business environment is lagging behind drastically.
Indeed, paper cheques remain still the most commonly used payment method for commercial transactions. Transaction limits and percentage charges are barriers of current digital alternatives that hold back businesses from moving away from the cheques.
“Cheque volumes and values continued to decline, while average value of cheques increased; (...) the average value of a corporate cheque increased by about five per cent. Cheques remain an important payment option for large value corporate payments.” - Payments Canada, 2020
Smith and Co-Founder Nick Addison (CTO) solved this problem by building a payment processing software that enables businesses to send and receive no-limit payments for a flat fee. With MazumaGo, they combined the simplicity of an eTransfer with the robustness and security of the banking system.
The company launched in September 2019 under the brand DivDot and rebranded in November 2020 as MazumaGo. Following the tagline, “Make business payments move,”—the company’s vision is to eliminate any reasons why businesses would want to use cheques and to build a simple, secure network for businesses to exchange funds.
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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