Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Personal Finance
Leveraging Your Home To Start A New Business From The Ground Up
Guest Post | Nov 1, 2021
A lot of unfortunate people lost jobs thanks to the pandemic. Some have decided the only way to protect themselves in the future is to start their own business. Sadly, the vast majority of them are going to fail pretty fast.
I think people underestimate the amount of money you need to keep going when things get tough. Luckily, it's a lot easier when you own a nice home. Let's look at some cool ways you can use your home to bankroll a new business.
Look Into A Reverse Mortgage
If you're a little older you should have a good amount of equity in your home. If you speak to a company like CloverMortgage reverse mortgage brokers should be able to offer you quite a bit of money to fund your startup.
It's great because you won't need to pay anything back until you eventually sell your home, so it doesn't matter if your business succeeds or not. You'll get a lump sum so make sure you don't spend it all at once.
Extend Your Current Mortgage
Speak to a certified mortgage broker and you might be able to extend your current mortgage. How much are you spending on your mortgage per month at the moment? Those payments will drop when you add on more years.
It does mean you'll end up paying extra interest over the lifetime of your mortgage, but it's not all bad news. If your business is successful, the money you make means you'll be able to pay back extra at a later date.
Renting Out Your Garden Shed
Do you have a garden shed or garage that's sitting unused? You won't be the only person who is trying to start a new business right now. Someone who doesn't have a garden shed might be desperate to make furniture or fix bikes.
See: Why Artificial Intelligence Will Solve All Our Money Problems
You will be able to rent out the space for a monthly fee. As soon as you get the money you can reinvest it in your own business. If the person renting it out is successful they'll likely keep it for a long time.
Look For A Suitable Roommate
When was the last time you lived with a roommate? If you have a spare bedroom it might be worth renting it out for a few years. It's a consistent amount of cash being pumped into your business while it's in the growth stage.
If you're unsure about renting out a room try to look for a college student. They tend to spend most of their free time studying in their bedroom. Sharing your home is a small price to pay for building a successful business.
Let Someone Use Your Driveway
One of the best things about working from home is the fact you don't need to drive to work. But everyone won't be as lucky as you. They will still have jobs in the city where it's difficult to find parking spaces.
See: Digital money is an opportunity for Canada – if we seize it
Depending on where you live, it might be easy to find someone willing to rent your driveway. They could park in the morning and pick their car up after work. If you have enough space for two cars it's double the money.
You Need To Make Sacrifices
If you want to build a great business you need to make sacrifices. At least these options don't require you to sell your home, so you'll always have somewhere to live.
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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Why Artificial Intelligence Will Solve All Our Money Problems
Guest Post | Nov 1, 2021
Artificial intelligence is already pretty big in the finance industry, but it's going to get better within a few years. It will get to the point where it makes life easier for the average person on a daily basis.
Things like paying off credit cards and applying for loans are still tough, but technology is coming on leaps and bounds. Let's take a look at some of the most popular ways AI will play a large part in our lives.
Easier To Apply For A Loan
When loan providers are unable to make smart lending decisions fewer people will be approved. It's important to err on the side of caution when you don't know whether or not someone will pay back a loan or default.
You can skip high-interest payday loan companies once AI reaches a point where it can accurately predict who deserves a loan. Not only will your application be approved, but it's going to go through much quicker too.
Paying Off Your Credit Cards
Too many people need to get a loan in Ottawa and other expensive places to pay off credit cards. Banks are at fault because they give you too much credit in the first place. AI will tell them a safe amount you can handle.
It will also let banks know when your credit limits should be raised because AI doesn't stop learning. More people will be approved for cards if they can afford them, and risky customers will be rejected when applying for credit.
Protecting You From Fraudsters
Multi-factor authentication helps people avoid fraudsters right now. Other systems put in place to protect you are effective too, but scammers always find a way to steal money because they're intelligent.
See: Synthetic Media and Deepfakes: An insurance industry threat
Artificial intelligence is getting much better at detecting odd behavior and blocking transactions. I know it's sometimes frustrating when they get it wrong, but it's going to learn from any mistakes going forward.
Beat The Stock Market Regularly
Most professionals who've worked in the financial industry for decades can't beat the S&P 500, so what chance does the average person have? It means the stock market isn't enticing if you want to make lots of money.
AI is helping us predict the future more accurately, and machines can learn from things like the 2008 financial crisis. Once you know the right time to buy, hold, and sell stocks you'll be able to retire faster.
What To Spend Your Money On
We have apps that can help us understand how much we have to spend, but none that tell us if it's a good idea. Can you imagine the day when AI will be able to tell you whether or not to make a purchase you're thinking about?
See: Kraken Crypto report and On-Chain Analysis: SHOKTOBER
You will be told why it's not a great idea and what you should do instead. If you can get a little better at spending on a regular basis it will add up. You'll also save time when you don't need to mull over financial decisions.
Will AI Improve Your Life
Will any of the advancements in technology we've talked about today improve your life? We're still in the early stages at the moment, but wait to see what it's like in a few years.
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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Wealthsimple adds crypto portfolios to group-retirement plans
BNN Bloomberg | | Oct 21, 2021
Power Corp. of Canada’s online financial-services company Wealthsimple is adding retirement portfolios that include Bitcoin and Ethereum for its group-retirement clients, another sign of the possible mainstreaming of cryptocurrencies.
Employees of companies with retirement plans run by Wealthsimple Work will be able to allocate 1 per cent to 3 per cent of their holdings into exchange-traded funds made up of Bitcoin and Ethereum, Wealthsimple said Thursday. The plans will automatically rebalance to keep the crypto, stock and bond portions of their portfolios at their targeted levels.
For Wealthsimple, adding cryptocurrencies to retirement plans is a way to differentiate its offerings from those of other financial-services providers and lure more companies to sign up with Wealthsimple Work. The move also is meant to encourage younger employees -- who may be enthusiastic about crypto, but less interested in saving for retirement -- to start contributing to Wealthsimple Work plans.
“When you’re young, that’s the best time to start saving for retirement,” Tim Kalimov, head of Wealthsimple Work, said in an interview. “So getting those folks invested is really critical.”
See: Wealthsimple CEO Michael Katchen on his not-so-simple mission: to help people — especially youth — build the foundations of financial freedom
Wealthsimple has more than 2 million users and in May raised $750 million (US$609 million) in a funding round that valued it at about US$4 billion, more than three times what it was worth just seven months earlier. Wealthsimple Work manages group retirement plans for hundreds of companies, according to the company’s website.
See: First US Bitcoin ETF Already in Danger of Breaching Futures Contracts Limit
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer James Gorman said last week that he doesn’t think crypto is a fad, pitting him against JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, who said days earlier that he personally thinks Bitcoin is “worthless” though some of his clients disagree. Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein said crypto “may be one of the thousand things that I never in a million years thought would work, and it may work.”
“It’s clearly a part of the cultural conversation,” Kalimov said. “There is a potential that cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology that underpins them are really transformational, and that’s where the excitement in the market is coming from.”
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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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Gen Z VCs are entrepreneurial, digitally native, values-focused
AngelList | Matthew Speiser | Oct 8, 2021
“The barriers to entrepreneurship and investing have never been lower, and our generation is very aware of the opportunity we have.”
See: Why is venture capital still ignoring women? The case for investing is clear.
Gen Z has become the target market for many new businesses—and founders and venture firms want to work with them. Hence the rise of Gen Z VCs, an online community where young investors swap knowledge and deal flow. Gen Z VCs has grown to 10k members since launching in November 2020.
“Gen Z is unique in that we’re entrepreneurial, digitally native, values-focused, and we don’t accept the status quo,”
said Meagan Loyst, the 24-year-old founder of Gen Z VCs and an early-stage investor at Lerer Hippeau.
Leveraging Personal Brands
“More so than previous generations, Gen Zers are really great at building their brand, and that’s something that’s helped me a lot personally,” said Chang. “The whole pre-seed and seed space is about who you know, and if founders know you because of your brand, it can go a long way towards earning an allocation.”
“I think we owe some of our success to the fact that more founders are coming from Gen Z, and they don’t often get to speak to someone who’s their peer during the fundraising process,” said Doherty. “Founders want people their own age on the cap table because we share a similar worldview.”
Lowered Barriers to Entry
Young investors like Loyst, Chang, and Doherty have benefitted from new technologies and financial tools that make it easier to launch startups and funds, as well as a greater democratization of investing knowledge brought on by the internet.
See: Value investing is struggling to remain relevant
Another big positive development for Gen Z VCs has been new SEC rules adopted last year that increase access to private investments. The rule changes allow more investors to participate in private offerings by adding new categories of individuals who may qualify as accredited investors based on their professional knowledge, experience, or certifications.
Gen Zers have utilized these rules to spin up their own funds and invest in their friends’ businesses and funds. Ryan Li, an angel investor and junior at Stanford University, said his classmates are taking the Series 63 exam to earn accredited investor status. Some have also used their crypto fortunes to meet the wealth requirements.
“We’re young in our careers and we have the opportunity to be bold and take some risks,” said Li.
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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Miami mayor says the city is moving toward paying public employees in bitcoin
ComplianceX | | Oct 13, 2021
Miami will advance a plan to pay city workers in bitcoin, Mayor Francis Suarez told Bloomberg on Tuesday, expanding on his push to make the Florida city a major hub for digital assets.
“We’re going for a request for proposal in October to allow our employees to get paid in bitcoin, to allow our residents to pay for fees in bitcoin and even taxes potentially in bitcoin if the county allows it,” Suarez said in an interview with the business channel.
A formal solicitation would come after the city commissioners in February backed his resolution to direct the city manager to procure a vendor to offer employees the ability to receive a percentage of their salary in bitcoin.
See: Miami’s mayor says MiamiCoin generated over $5 million USD for the city in the last 30 days
At the time, bitcoin traded close to $48,000, then hit an all-time high of $64,804.72 in April, fell below $30,000 in July, and recently reclaimed the $55,000 mark.
Despite the price volatility, Suarez also wants the state of Florida to allow Miami to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet. Statutes at the state and federal levels currently don’t allow cryptocurrencies to be owned by municipalities.
“It’s a major priority for me because I want us to differentiate ourselves as the crypto capital of the United States or of the world,” Suarez told Bloomberg Tuesday.
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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Finliti Delivers Personalized Financial Insights Using the Power of Psychometrics
Finliti | Jennifer Schell and Dr. Stefano Di Domenico | Oct 13, 2021
Harnessing information and channelling its energy to improve people’s financial activities is the very essence of FinTech. The promise is to thrust traditional financial services—banking, insurance, and investment management—into cyberspace where they can be reimagined and elaborated by mobile software to add both capability and fluidity to people’s lives. This frontier of possibilities also brings new challenges to the forefront: With more people carrying their investment portfolios on their mobile devices, FinTech is asked to deliver high-quality, customized financial guidance wherever and whenever people want it.
Finliti is ready to meet this challenge. Our goal is to engage with investors in the ways that are most personally meaningful and helpful for them. We believe that investing should be as fun and immersive or as serious and disciplined as investors desire. We believe in financial inclusion—that every investor, no matter their experience or the size of their portfolio, deserves access to personalized financial advice. And most of all, we believe that all investors deserve the opportunity to earn good returns and meet their financial objectives.
See: The Trading Game
This is why we developed the Finliti Investor Profile Indicator (FIPI), a rigorously developed psychometric assessment and interactive feedback platform that helps investors understand how they allocate attention, make decisions, and react to important market events. The FIPI was developed by starting with the recognition that each investor is unique.
We’ve all heard it before: Some investors are more risk averse than others. True! But have you ever pondered the fact that some investors are more intellectually curious and enthusiastic than others? That some investors more readily defer to the advice of others? And that some investors are dangerously overconfident? More to the point: Did you know that these investor characteristics are as important as risk aversion? These are real emotional and behavioral tendencies that define the investor experience. For too long, they have been difficult to measure and frequently overlooked. Until now... The FIPI unlocks investors’ self-knowledge and transforms those self-insights into a more optimal investing experience and motivation for long-term success.
The FIPI is the culmination of considerable research and development. It was developed using a painstaking, “bottom-up” approach that probed over 250 different beliefs, preferences, emotional experiences, and behavioral tendencies that are common to self-directed investors. From this long list, we distilled four personality traits using advanced psychometric tools: Zeal, Inhibition, Conventionality, and Swag. These traits can be used to comprehensively describe the psychological individuality of investors.
- Zealous investors tend to be enthusiastic and can become overly excited and sometimes even carried away by new opportunities;
- Inhibited investors tend to be risk-averse, easily lose confidence, and often feel intimidated by the stock market;
- Conventional investors more readily follow the advice of others, they trust “the experts”;
- Swaggy investors tend to believe they know more about investing than they actually do and that they are immune to experiencing negative financial events.
See: How to get into investing with ‘no’ money
These FIPI traits characterize the psychological landscape of self-directed investors. Our research shows that the FIPI traits are reliably related to key demographic variables like age and level of education, differentially related to economic and financial knowledge, and predict financial behaviors and consequential outcomes like the amount of trades that investors execute, their levels of decision paralysis, and their degree of impulsive decision making. We presented some of this research at the 7th Biennial Meeting of the Association for Research in Personality, which took place in June, 2021.
Curious? Try our Discovery Survey for FREE! It’s a miniature FIPI, powered by the same psychometric insights but delivered in abbreviated form. It will give you a broad overview of your investing personality that is equal parts informative and playful.
The complete FIPI feedback expands on the micro-version. The feedback is longer, more detailed, and offers many actionable insights. It is reference material that - with the passage of time - may aid in the development of deeper self-understanding each time it is read anew. It provides an objective viewpoint from which investors can learn about their strengths, identify their blind spots, and evaluate the way they make investment-related decisions.
The goal isn’t to change investors’ personalities. Rather, the purpose of FIPI’s feedback is to help investors become more mindful of their emotional tendencies so that they can more easily stay focused and rationally pursue their investment goals. For example, Zealous investors are reminded about their tendencies to bullishly rush into new positions; Inhibited investors are reminded that risks may be necessary to meet their objectives; Conventional investors are encouraged to crystallize their own opinions so that they can hold their positions with more conviction; and Swaggy investors are encouraged to learn. The feedback is personal. The platform is interactive. The insights are real.
Investors want high-quality, personalized insight and they want to be able to access it 24/7. The power of psychometrics can be harnessed to deliver this more optimal experience. So take a moment and give our Discovery Survey a try.
About the Authors
Jennifer Schell
Jennifer Schell is the founder and CEO of Finliti that she built to help investors make informed and impactful investment decisions to enrich their lives by achieving their financial goals. Her career spans over fifteen years across Canada’s major financial institutions, where she’s been passionate about wealth management and helping her clients align effective stock market strategies with their core values. (LinkedIn)
Dr. Stefano Di Domenico
Dr. Di Domenico is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, where he teaches personality and neuroscience. He has published dozens of articles, advancing the modern understanding of motivation, personality, and decision making. His current research focus is behavioral finance and FinTech. He serves on Finliti’s advisory board. (LinkedIn)
This article is featured in NCFA's digital magazine, Fintech Confidential (Issue 4 Oct 2021). Click to read the latest thought leadership, insights and trends about Fintech in Canada:
Checkout NCFA's digital magazine, Fintech Confidential (Issue 4) --> 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 dream of a low-friction financial system is just the beginning
The Economist | Sep 18, 2021
Although the terminology is intimidating (fees are “gas”; the main currency is ether, and title deeds over digital assets are known as NFTs), the basic activities taking place on DeFi are familiar. These include trading on exchanges and issuing loans and taking deposits through self-executing agreements called smart contracts. One yardstick of activity is the value of digital instruments being used as collateral: from almost nothing in early 2018 it has reached $90bn. Another is the value of transactions that Ethereum is verifying. In the second quarter this reached $2.5trn, around the same sum as Visa processes and equivalent to a sixth of the activity on Nasdaq, a stock exchange.
The dream of a low-friction financial system is just the beginning.
DeFi is spreading to more ambitious terrain. MetaMask, a DeFi wallet with more than 10m users, acts as a digital identity. To enter a decentralised “metaverse”, a looking-glass world with shops run by its users, you link your wallet to a cartoonish avatar who roams around. These digital worlds will become the subject of intensifying competition as more spending shifts online. Big tech firms could impose huge taxes on these mini-economies: imagine Apple’s App Store charging fees, or Facebook selling your avatar’s intimate secrets. A better alternative might be decentralised networks that host applications and are run mutually by users. DeFi could provide payments and property rights.
See: The Intersection of Ecommerce and NFTs: How NFT Technology is Changing DeFi
Crypto-enthusiasts see a Utopia. But there is a long way to go before DeFi is as reliable as, say, JPMorgan Chase or PayPal. Some problems are prosaic. A common criticism is that blockchain platforms do not scale easily and that the computers they harness consume wasteful amounts of electricity. But Ethereum is a self-improvement machine. When it is in high demand the fees it charges for verification can climb, encouraging developers to work on minimising the intensity with which they use it. There will be new versions of Ethereum; other, better blockchains could one day replace it.
Yet DeFi also raises questions about how a virtual economy with its own norms interacts with the real world.
One worry is the lack of an external anchor of value. Cryptocurrencies are no different from the dollar, in that they rely on people having a shared expectation of their utility. However, conventional money is also backed by states with a monopoly on force and central banks that are lenders of last resort. Without these, DeFi will be vulnerable to panics. Contract enforcement outside the virtual world is also a concern. A blockchain contract may say you own a house but only the police can enforce an eviction.
Governance and accountability in DeFi-land are rudimentary.
A sequence of large irrevocable transactions that humans cannot override could be dangerous, especially as coding errors are inevitable.
See: WEF: Decentralized Finance: (DeFi) Policy-Maker Toolkit
Money-laundering has thrived in the ungoverned grey zone of services lying between Ethereum and the banking system. Despite the claims of decentralisation, some programmers and app owners hold disproportionate sway over the DeFi system. And a malign actor could even gain control over a majority of the computers that run a blockchain.
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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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