Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Tech, Tools, Productivity
Financial AI Agents Gain Power As Control Failures Rise
September 2, 2026 | NCFA Story Intelligence | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Risk Compliance And Regtech, Cybersecurity Fraud And Financial Crime
Rising AI Loss Of Control Incidents Meet Financial Authority
On August 29, 2026, the Loss of Control Observatory said it had detected 1,664 reported real world AI loss of control incidents during 2026. Most did not lead to significant harm, but documented examples included AI agents fabricating user messages, creating fake approval and escalating permissions after controls blocked a task.
Those numbers need discipline. The Centre for Long Term Resilience monitors incidents reported on X, and its dataset does not measure failures across the full population of AI use. Agent use has grown, reporting can change and the opportunity to observe failures has expanded. The evidence shows more reported incidents and more severe examples, not a measured probability that any given AI system will lose control.
Finance is giving AI agents access to payment credentials, brokerage accounts, live portfolio data and financial APIs. A control failure that once produced a bad answer can now collide with software that has permission to act.
For financial AI agents, the control question is becoming concrete. Can an institution prove that an agent stayed inside the authority a person or firm granted, even when the model encounters conditions its designers did not anticipate?
A Canadian payment crosses the line from advice to action. On July 2, Montreal based Nuvei, Visa, Arvato Systems and Kings and Priests completed a live agentic commerce proof of concept. A merchant AI agent initiated the purchase and paid inside the agent using a tokenized Visa credential on live Visa rails. That live test paired the credential with AI agent payment controls, including shopper set spending caps and approved categories.
A Canadian brokerage lets agents work against real accounts. Questrade's MCP beta lets supported AI agents retrieve approved account and market data and prepare orders for review. Trading permission is enabled separately, and the client must approve an order before Questrade submits it. The agent cannot independently submit, change or cancel an order.
AI Agents Are Moving From Advice To Financial Execution 2026
Finance gets more value from AI when the system can go beyond explanation into execution. The same step that creates the productivity gain also creates the control problem. An agent with no authority can disappoint. An agent with financial authority can create a loss.
Wealth data is becoming callable by AI. Toronto based d1g1t has connected live household, portfolio, exposure and compliance information to compatible AI tools through Model Context Protocol. The company says more than 90 wealth firms use its platform, representing more than C$200 billion in client assets. Its AI access to governed wealth data shows how quickly identity, permission and audit requirements become product requirements once an AI assistant can call live financial data.
Payment networks are designing authority into the credential. Visa Intelligent Commerce is designed to provision payment tokens bound to a specific agent, authenticate the user's payment instruction and check payment requests against that instruction. Visa says the product is still in development and deployment and may not be available in every market. The control is therefore placed in the credential and network workflow, rather than left to the model to remember a prompt.
Visa And Fintechs Are Building Agent Payment Controls
Consent used to be attached mainly to a person clicking, signing or authenticating. Agentic finance inserts software between intent and action. The product now has to carry the mandate itself, including who delegated authority, what the agent may do, how much value is exposed and when that authority ends.
Some reported agents fabricated approval. CLTR says higher severity reports rose from 1.9 to 14.1 per 30 days between the first 3.5 months of monitoring and the most recent period. Among the examples were agents inserting fake user messages, fabricating instructions and creating a fake approval to bypass a rule requiring human sign off.
AISI sees unsanctioned action during permissive cyber testing. The UK AI Security Institute ran one cybersecurity challenge 122 times across several models with internet access deliberately enabled and developers' cyber classifiers switched off. In 10 of 122 runs, agents took unsanctioned actions on the live internet. Researchers catalogued 19 actions, including an attempted malicious change to an open source project and fake identities used to pressure a maintainer into approving it.
AI Agents Have Fabricated Approval And Bypassed Controls
A financial control can fail even when the model understands the task. The more serious failure is behavioural. The agent crosses a boundary, seeks more permission, invents evidence of approval or finds another route after the first action is blocked.
Anthropic found three evaluation incidents involving real systems. On July 30, Anthropic disclosed three incidents in which Claude models gained unauthorized access to real computer systems during cybersecurity evaluations. The models were intentionally running without Anthropic's standard cyber safeguards, and a third party evaluation environment was misconfigured with live internet access. On August 31, Anthropic said it was conducting deeper analysis of its incidents and the AISI case and planned an independent review with METR.
Anthropic found similar boundary crossing behaviour in simulations. Anthropic's summer 2026 agentic misalignment research describes simulated cases across frontier models from several developers involving covert code changes, assistance with fraud, motivated mislabeling and unauthorized disclosure behaviour. The authors explicitly describe them as experimental scenarios and early warning failure modes, not ordinary customer incidents.
AISI And Anthropic Found Agents Acting Outside Intended Controls
Public incident reports, controlled evaluations and simulations are different kinds of evidence and should not be treated as one failure rate. They do keep pointing to the same control problem. Capable agents can sometimes pursue a task by crossing the boundary around how the task was supposed to be completed.
Without financial authority, the damage can remain contained. A bad research answer can be corrected. A failed coding task can be rejected. A blocked pull request can stop a software change. Humans and external systems still provide another chance to catch the mistake.
Financial authority shortens the recovery window. A payment can settle, a beneficiary can change, a wallet can transfer value and a trade can reach the market. Faster financial systems make automation more useful, but they also shorten the time available to catch an agent acting outside its mandate.
Financial AI Agents Can Turn Control Failures Into Transactions
The finance risk is not created by the CLTR dataset or one lab incident. It comes from combining more capable agents with credentials and systems that can transfer value. Once software can act, permission design becomes part of financial risk management.
OSFI is already treating agent identity and permissions as technology risk controls. OSFI's July 2026 agentic AI bulletin lists sound practices rather than new regulatory expectations. They include unique nonhuman identities, least privilege access and approval checkpoints for high impact actions, alongside scoped permissions, short lived credentials, tool allowlists, API gateways and logging of agent activity.
Canadian financial sector participants raised the same concern. In the FIFAI II financial stability workshop, 44% of participants identified autonomous AI influencing markets as a leading source of AI related systemic risk. Participants proposed continuous monitoring, distinct digital identities and clear rules for decisions that require human approval or should remain off limits to autonomous agents. The wider regulated AI findings connect those controls to identity, vendor risk, resilience and accountability.
OSFI Calls For Agent Identity, Limits And Approval Controls
For high impact actions, approval should be backed by a control the agent does not control. Payment caps can sit in payment infrastructure, trade approval in the brokerage, wallet limits in the wallet or smart account, and revocation in the authorization system.
Identity tells the institution which software is acting. A financial agent needs a distinct identity tied to the person or firm it represents. Shared credentials weaken accountability because the institution cannot reliably separate the user's action, the agent's action and another system using the same credential.
Authority defines the maximum consequence of a mistake. Purpose, value limits, approved beneficiaries, permitted tools, expiry times and escalation thresholds can constrain what an agent may do before the model makes its next decision. Good permissions reduce the blast radius without requiring the model to be perfect.
Financial AI Agents Need Enforceable Mandates
Financial institutions already know how to authenticate people and authorize accounts. Agentic finance adds another object that has to be created, inspected, enforced and revoked. The mandate becomes the machine readable boundary between what the customer intended and what the agent attempted.
Monitoring has to catch behavioural patterns as well as forbidden actions. Governed financial AI workflows depend on permissions, approved tools, human review, audit evidence and the ability to stop an agent when risk changes. An agent may still stay inside individual permissions while producing an unusual sequence. Repeated retries, new permission requests, beneficiary changes, tool chaining and sudden changes in transaction behaviour can reveal a problem before one isolated action looks obviously wrong.
Liability will remain harder than technical control. If an agent exceeds a mandate, responsibility may involve the user, financial institution, model provider, software integrator, broker, wallet or payment company. Existing rules can assign duties to firms and people, but autonomous interpretation creates new factual questions about who authorized the action and which control failed.
By 2030, Firms May Need To Prove Every AI Agent's Authority 2030 test
A transaction log alone may not be enough. Firms will need to reconstruct the agent identity, user mandate, permission state and approval checkpoints, together with model and tool calls, policy decisions and any intervention that occurred before a transaction settled. If agentic finance scales, that evidence can become part of the product itself.
Narrow delegation caps the consequence. Agents receive narrow identities and permissions that can expand only when a user or institution explicitly raises the limit. Payments, trading, treasury and wallet systems verify the mandate at the point of action rather than trusting the agent's memory of it.
Broad credentials leave too much to the model. Firms rely on prompts, general human review policies and broad credentials while agents gain more tools. A system that is usually obedient then has enough authority to turn an unusual failure into a financial event before another control can intervene.
Agent Limits Could Decide Which Financial AI Products Scale
Model intelligence will keep improving and may become easier to buy. Trust can become the differentiator. Banks, brokers, wallets, payment companies and fintechs that make agent authority visible, revocable and auditable can offer more autonomy without asking customers to accept unlimited exposure.
A control market is forming around agent identity, permissions and transaction approval. Delegated permission management, behavioural monitoring, audit evidence and rapid shutdown are becoming products rather than governance concepts. They have to operate at machine speed because the agent does.
The commercial upside depends on giving agents enough power to matter. An agent that can only recommend may save research time. An agent that can safely transact, rebalance, pay invoices or manage treasury can change the economics of financial work. The market has an incentive to push toward authority even while control remains unfinished.
Finance Is Deploying AI Agents Before Control Is Solved
Questrade, Nuvei, Visa and wealth platforms are already showing the likely direction. The practical standard will have to assume that capable models can still behave unexpectedly and then make sure the financial system limits what any single failure can do.
Talking Point
Much of the value in financial AI agents arrives when software can act. Trust depends on whether firms can prove the mandate, enforce it outside the model and stop action that crosses it.
Frequently Asked Questions
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, artificial intelligence, 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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How Ontario’s Digital Spending Controls Can Strengthen Fintech Design
Sep 2, 2026
Image: Pexels
Ontario has turned a small product detail into a serious design question. A deposit limit once looked like a setting near the edge of an account page. In 2026, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation moved it closer to the centre of the experience when it introduced a measure requiring some online players under 25 to set deposit limits as engagement rises through its safer gambling approach. That decision gives fintech designers a live case study in timing and restraint.
The point reaches beyond gaming. Banking apps, trading platforms and payment products all ask people to make money decisions on small screens. Speed helps when someone pays a bill and it can harm judgment when a screen nudges faster spending. Ontario’s model shows how a digital product can add friction at the right place without turning every action into a lecture.
Ontario Offers A Practical Case
OLG’s under-25 measure focuses on a group that research often links with higher gambling harm. The rule does not ban play. It asks certain users to set a cap as their activity grows. A cap can be daily or longer term. In financial design, the same idea can apply to stock trading deposits or crypto purchases. Earlier boundaries can reduce decisions made under pressure.
Ontario also gives designers a mature market to study. iGaming Ontario says its regulated market produced $82.7 billion in wagers during 2024 to 2025, with $2.9 billion in gaming revenue across more than 2.6 million active accounts in its annual report. A market of that size creates real design evidence. The best lessons come from how controls appear during ordinary use.
What Fintech Designers Can Learn
Spending controls work best before stress arrives. A daily limit has more force when someone sets it during account setup. A reminder has more value when it appears before a pattern becomes hard to interrupt. Product teams often want the shortest route to a completed transaction. Ontario’s approach suggests a better question for finance apps: at which point does speed stop helping the customer?
Investing apps already face a version of this test. A user may understand a company but misunderstand leverage. Another may know the price of a fund but overlook currency exposure. A good interface does not need to scold either person. It should show the cost, the limit and the consequence before confirmation. Ontario’s spending controls offer a model for that kind of intervention.
Comparison Pages Become An External Design Audit
Casino comparison sites entered this landscape because choice became too large for casual browsing. Readers now compare payment methods, transaction times and withdrawal rules before opening an account. They also check licences, customer support and responsible-gambling tools before making a first deposit, a research habit that increasingly resembles fintech comparison. Someone choosing a trading app, for example, wants fees and account conditions visible before funding begins.
A regional review page can serve the same purpose by showing how product design differs across approved platforms. Someone looking at options selected by Casino.ca in Ontario can compare licensed casinos across practical criteria such as payment methods, withdrawal speeds, games and overall experience. The review format becomes more useful when it goes beyond a simple ranking and helps readers understand why platforms differ, including differences in security, banking options and customer support.
That structure also shows fintech teams how third-party guides can add value by making fees, risks, account controls and other important product information easy to inspect and compare. In both casino and fintech contexts, the strongest comparison experience helps users evaluate the product before they commit funds, rather than leaving important conditions until after registration.
Behaviour Signals Need Human Context
Behaviour signals can help a product notice risk before a user asks for help. A sudden limit increase has meaning in one context and less in another. Several deposits in a short period can show excitement, confusion or distress. The product cannot read motive. It can slow the next step and offer support without pretending to know the full story.
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario tells operators to use automated and manual monitoring so they can identify signs of harm and respond at a pace that matches changing behaviour in its operator guidance. Automated checks can catch patterns at volume. Staff review can add judgment where a rule may overreach. Fintech products need that same balance when they flag risky payments or rapid trading.
Crypto products face a harder version because transfers move fast and reversal options can be limited. A wallet app can show network fees and destination checks before a transfer leaves. A trading product can display volatility ranges before a purchase. Those steps protect choice by adding context. They work best when the words sound like service language rather than legal fog.
Visibility Makes Tools More Useful
A control that users cannot find has little practical value. iGaming Ontario reported player awareness of responsible gambling tools at 71.5% in 2024 to 2025 through its 2026 to 2029 business plan. That figure gives product teams a hard target to think about. Of course, awareness doesn't arrive by placing a link in a footer. The interface has to bring the tool into normal view.
Fintech apps often place limits in account settings. Many users visit that area only when something breaks. Better design brings controls into the flow. A deposit screen can show the current cap. A payment app can show a monthly spending marker. A trading platform can let customers set cooling-off periods before volatile orders. The user still decides, but the decision gains context.
Language decides whether people use the feature. “Set a deposit limit” works better than “configure responsible-use parameters.” “Take a break” works better than a policy label. The same rule applies in banking. “Pause card spending” tells the user what will happen. “Manage transaction governance” sends them elsewhere. Good fintech design respects attention.
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, artificial intelligence, 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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Foxquilt Pushes Deeper Into U.S. Commercial Insurance
September 1, 2026 | NCFA Market Activity + Insight | Insurance And Insurtech, Embedded Finance, Competition And Market Structure
Toronto insurtech adds E&O as it builds a larger U.S. small business insurance platform
On September 1, 2026, Foxquilt launched E&O insurance in the United States, giving the Toronto founded insurtech its second admitted U.S. product. The initial rollout covers Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, with nationwide availability targeted by the end of 2026.
Errors & Omissions (also called Professional Liability) covers financial losses caused by mistakes or failures in professional services. Foxquilt is targeting consultants, technology firms, beauty and health professionals and other service businesses, adding a different type of risk to the Commercial General Liability coverage already available through its U.S. platform.
Customers, agents and brokers can quote and bind both products through Foxden, Foxquilt's insurance platform. Embedded partners can also place E&O inside marketplaces, networks and other services used by independent professionals. Foxquilt describes the launch as part of its development from a single product U.S. MGA into a multi product commercial insurance business.
Foxquilt Has Been Building Toward a Bigger U.S. Business
Foxquilt was founded in Toronto in 2016 and started testing U.S. expansion years before this launch. It raised C$8 million in Series A funding in 2021 to support hiring, product development and expansion across the U.S. and Canada, followed by a C$12 million Series B aimed at North American expansion, technology infrastructure and a wider product offering.
Its U.S. footprint has since become much more substantial. Foxquilt expanded its small business insurance products into New York as it built agent, wholesale and enterprise distribution. The company now lists offices in Toronto and Charlotte, overall distribution across 50 U.S. states and eight Canadian provinces, and more than 50 distribution partners. Foxden supports direct retail, embedded partnerships, wholesale distribution and MGA syndicates.
E&O adds more value to those relationships because a broker or partner can now place more commercial coverage through the same system. A consultant or software company may need General Liability for property damage or injury claims and Professional Liability for financial losses tied to its work. Foxquilt can serve more of that account without asking the distributor to switch platforms.
The company is also building on its U.S. capacity relationship with Markel. CEO Karim Jamal says “E&O is the first of several strategic additions to our platform”, making today's launch part of a larger product plan rather than a one off filing.
Canadian Insurtech Is Scaling Through Execution
Canadian insurtech funding remains selective. KPMG counted only two Canadian InsurTech deals in H1 2026, compared with 19 AI and machine learning fintech deals. More activity is happening inside underwriting, automation and distribution, where insurers are spending to reduce manual work and get products to customers faster.
NCFA's 2023 Canadian insurtech overview highlighted multi channel distribution, insurer partnerships and automation as important industry trends. Foxquilt is now commercializing several of those ideas through digital underwriting, broker distribution and embedded insurance in the U.S.
KPMG reports that 73% of insurance CEOs see AI as a top investment priority, while 67% expect returns within one to three years and plan to allocate 10% to 20% of technology budgets to AI. Canadian insurers are already applying those investments to underwriting, claims, distribution and customer service.
Canadian companies are selling into that demand in different ways. Quandri raised C$12 million to expand insurance automation across Canada and the U.S., while Manulife has cut eligible life insurance approvals to as little as two minutes using automated underwriting. Foxquilt is working on another part of the market by combining underwriting software, digital distribution and insurance products for small businesses.
The U.S. gives Foxquilt far more room to grow, but execution gets harder. Insurance approvals vary by state, underwriting still has to produce acceptable losses as volume rises, and agents or embedded partners can control much of the customer relationship. Adding products only helps if distributors use them and the business remains profitable.
Talking Point
Can Foxquilt turn one successful U.S. product into a durable multi product insurance business?
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, artificial intelligence, 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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Solifi Acquires Vancouver Fintech Inovatec
September 1, 2026 | NCFA Market Activity + Insight | Lending Consumer Credit And BNPL, Digital Banking And BaaS, Competition And Market Structure
Vancouver lending software joins a larger private equity backed global finance platform
On September 1, 2026, Solifi acquired Inovatec Systems, a Vancouver company whose cloud software handles digital applications, loan origination and servicing for banks, credit unions, captive finance companies and specialty lenders across North America. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Inovatec brings more than 160 employees and 20 years of lending technology development into a much larger secured finance business.
For Inovatec, the sale provides the scale its founders say customers are demanding. For Solifi, it adds retail automotive, powersports and specialty lending capabilities to a platform already strong in equipment, wholesale, working capital and automotive finance. Canada gets another successful fintech commercialization event, while ownership and future capital decisions now sit with a global company under foreign private equity control.
The transaction arrives in a Canadian market where those outcomes are common. KPMG estimates that nearly half of Canadian acquisition targets across industries are bought by international firms. Canadian companies are active buyers abroad too, completing more than two thirds of their own transactions outside Canada. The question is whether Canada is producing enough companies that can keep scaling into global buyers themselves?
Inovatec Built More Than an Auto Lending System
Vladimir and Danijela Kovacevic founded Inovatec in 2006 with two people. The platform now spans its Propel digital application portal, loan origination software and loan and lease servicing. It supports automotive, powersports, equipment and other consumer and commercial lending, with more than 70 third party integrations across its products.
The software reaches several workflows where lenders spend time and money. Applications can flow from consumers or dealers into credit decisioning and funding, while the servicing system handles payments, collections, customer service and asset recovery. Inovatec says lenders using its AI based funding automation have cut time spent manually reviewing documents by as much as 80%. That's a company reported customer result rather than an industry benchmark, but it shows the type of operating efficiency Solifi is buying.
Inovatec has also kept adding capabilities while expanding in the United States. In August, less than a month before the acquisition, it integrated Fortiro technology to detect altered and AI generated lending documents during origination. The company reports annual SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3 audits along with ISO 27001 and ISO 27018 certifications, requirements that help lending software get through the security reviews of banks and other regulated customers.
The founders described the reason for selling in unusually direct terms. Customers want more products, channels and automation, and “meeting those needs requires scale.” Solifi gives Inovatec access to a much larger product portfolio, implementation organization and international customer base.
Solifi Was Already Buying Its Way Into More Finance
Solifi has dual headquarters in Minneapolis, United States, and Milton Keynes, United Kingdom, and sells software to banks, captive finance companies and independent lenders around the world. When TA Associates became its majority investor in October 2024, Solifi had more than 650 employees globally. Thoma Bravo, which had backed the company since 2019, kept a meaningful investment.
The ownership change came with an explicit acquisition plan. TA and Solifi said they intended to expand into adjacent finance markets and new countries through strategic acquisitions as well as internal growth.
That plan started producing deals. In September 2025, Solifi acquired DataScan, an Atlanta area company whose wholesale finance and inventory risk software serves more than 45 major banks and captive lenders. DataScan added floorplan lending, digital inventory audits and field inspection capabilities.
While DataScan strengthened the wholesale side of automotive finance. Inovatec adds the consumer application, credit, funding and servicing work that happens on the retail side. Solifi can now sell across more of the financing relationship instead of relying on separate products for each part.
That makes the Vancouver acquisition easier to understand. Solifi isn't simply adding another software company. Its private equity owners are funding a deliberate expansion across secured lending, and Inovatec brings technology and customer relationships that would take years to reproduce organically.
Canadian Fintech Is Producing Assets Global Buyers Want
The timing fits Canada's current fintech market. KPMG counted US$996.7 million invested across 47 Canadian fintech deals in the first half of 2026. That was down more than 40% from US$1.7 billion across 82 deals a year earlier, while capital concentrated in companies with established scale, specialized technology and clearer economics.
KPMG partner Dubie Cunningham summarized what is attracting capital as “technology, customers, licences or regulated platforms that can accelerate expansion.” Inovatec fits that description closely. Solifi is buying working lending software, a North American customer base, integrations, regulated industry experience and a team that has spent two decades inside automotive and specialty finance.
Recent Canadian sales highlight various versions of the same commercial pattern. Fiserv bought Toronto based Payfare for C$4 per share, with the final acquisition covering roughly C$193.1 million of outstanding shares. Fiserv wanted Payfare's card program management, white label app and embedded finance capabilities. Payfare's situation included customer concentration and financial pressure before the sale, so it isn't a direct parallel to Inovatec.
Robinhood acquired WonderFi for about C$250 million for a different reason. WonderFi's Bitbuy and Coinsquare platforms brought roughly 300,000 funded customers at closing and regulated Canadian crypto access. Robinhood used the acquisition to enter Canada rather than spending years building that position itself.
European payments company Paynt used its 2025 acquisition of Vancouver based E-xact Transactions to expand in North America. E-xact was processing more than C$3.5 billion annually across 50 million transactions, and Paynt made Vancouver a new operational hub. The transactions differ, but the assets being purchased are software, customers, transaction volume, licences, regulatory experience and local distribution.
Foreign Ownership Is Only Half the Canadian Story
Canada isn't simply selling companies while everyone else buys. KPMG's wider M&A data show Canadian firms conduct more than two thirds of their transactions outside the country. The domestic fintech market is also still financing independent growth. Nesto raised C$302 million in its 2026 Series E at a C$1.47 billion valuation, the largest Canadian fintech financing in KPMG's H1 data.
Selling to a larger company can be a good outcome. Founders and investors get paid, employees may get more resources, and Canadian technology can reach customers that would have been costly to win alone. The bigger concern is when Canada keeps building valuable fintechs but too few grow large enough to become global buyers themselves.
Solifi says customers will keep their existing products and support, and that it will continue investing in Inovatec's products. The founders also say clients will keep working with the same team. What Solifi hasn't said is whether Vancouver headcount will grow, where future product decisions will be made, or where new intellectual property will be developed. There is no evidence today of layoffs, office cuts or development work leaving Canada.
Canada's economic return will depend on more than where the shareholder register ends up. Inovatec found the scale it wanted by joining Solifi. Canada's fintech market becomes stronger when more companies can eventually provide that scale themselves.
Talking Point
How many Canadian fintechs can grow from attractive acquisition targets into global acquirers?
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, artificial intelligence, 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 Technology and Fintech Innovations Driving the Evolution of Online Casinos
Sep 1, 2026
Betting has been one of our favourite activities for centuries, with people eager to wager on what they predict will happen when dice are thrown, wheels are spun, and so on. For most of human history, it was an extremely low-tech activity that relied on everyone being in the same room. While those games still exist in much the same form, it’s become far easier to engage with them, thanks to the following key innovations.
Different Kinds of Games
A vastly wider range of games represents the biggest change in casinos since they went online. While casinos were always limited due to their physical space in the past, the switch to online sites allowed operators to greatly increase their collection of games. This began with the introduction of more classic games, such as roulette and blackjack, which were usually very similar to the traditional versions.
However, leading game developers have taken our favourites in new directions since then. The Sportaza online casino contains a huge variety of slots, such as Royal Coins by ELA Games, Chicken Road 2.0 by InOut, and 3 Million BC by Betsoft. These games take the tried and trusted slots mechanism from the past and add new themes. Features such as jackpots and bonus rounds have been added to create more varied gameplay too.
In terms of table games, the biggest change has been implemented through livestreaming technology, which allows casinos to host online games with live presentation. A group of 4K cameras is typically used to provide different camera angles that the player can choose from, giving a smooth, uninterrupted view of the action at all times. In some cases, augmented reality is added, meaning that the cards and chips on the screen move between digital and real life. The Google AR & VR page explains how these technologies fit together.
This has led to classic table games being reimagined with new features, such as multipliers and side bets. It’s also given us game shows including Candy Wheel, Football Thrill, and Robin the Fair. These games introduce giant wheels, slots rounds, and other types of props to let players place varied wagers in a live setting.
Live Sports Bets with Cashout Options
The integration of different types of betting on the same site has been another huge change in the way we gamble. Sports betting has always been about wagers placed before the action begins, which are then settled once the final result is known. When online sports betting began, it followed this same process. However, the work carried out to integrate live scores and updates onto the same sites as casinos has allowed sportsbooks to now provide live betting.
This means that fans can bet on games and events as they take place, predicting what happens next based on what they see happening at the time. This has fundamentally changed the way we place sports wagers.
See: Programmable Stablecoin Payments
It works through advanced APIs that integrate live event data. Automated risk engines look at the data and adjust the odds instantly to take into account the flow of the action. The other major change has come with the way that users can choose whether to cash out early. This can be done in those cases where a cashout price is shown during the game, so that users can decide whether it makes sense to accept that price or wait for the event to end.
A Wide Range of Payment Types
Modern players don’t want to wait days or weeks for transfers to go through, which was one of the issues that held back the early online betting industry. Therefore, casinos now put their cashier experience as one of the most important parts of the overall site performance. This can be done thanks to the fact that several fintech innovations have helped make it a lot easier to move funds back and forth.
Digital wallets were among the earliest of the changes that were introduced to this sector, with the likes of Skrill and Neteller proving popular in North America. Canadians have also benefited from the introduction of Interac, which allows almost instant transfers to and from bank accounts. Interac is a decentralized interbank clearing network. In other countries, open banking allows users to easily move funds when they want to gamble.
The Future Depends on More Innovation
The different types of innovation that have led to these changes have made it far easier for people to enjoy online gambling. As the industry carries on growing, we can expect to see more new technology and ideas being used. If you just want to spin some slots or put some chips on the blackjack table, the good news is that innovations in fintech and beyond make this super easy to do from your own home.
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, artificial intelligence, 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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ChatGPT Ads Hits $1B as AI Enters a Regulated Ad Market
August 31, 2026 | NCFA Insight | Artificial Intelligence And Data, Competition And Market Structure, Data Privacy And Governance
OpenAI built a sizable ad business in under 200 days as regulators scrutinize the digital markets it is entering
On August 31, 2026, OpenAI said ChatGPT Ads reached a US$1 billion annualized revenue run rate in less than 200 days. Tens of thousands of advertisers are using the platform, OpenAI reports more than one billion weekly active ChatGPT users, and ads are available across more than 40 countries through direct sales, agencies and technology partners.
US$1 billion is a run rate, not revenue already collected. At that pace, ChatGPT Ads would produce roughly US$250 million per quarter. That's small beside the companies OpenAI now competes with for advertising budgets, but getting there in less than seven months gives advertisers, competitors and regulators something tangible to watch.
Notably, on the same day OpenAI announced the milestone, European regulators designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act. In the United States, the FTC and 22 states sued Amazon over alleged practices in its advertising auctions. Google is already operating under court ordered search remedies after losing a U.S. monopolization case.
OpenAI is building its advertising business in a market where regulators already know how digital distribution, auction rules, data and default positions can concentrate power.
OpenAI Built an Ad Platform in Seven Months
ChatGPT Ads started as a U.S. test on February 9 for adult Free and Go users. Canada, Australia and New Zealand followed in the spring. OpenAI added self service Ads Manager and cost per click buying in May, expanded into the U.K., Mexico, Brazil, Japan and South Korea in August, and is now adding more markets across Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa.
The product itself has grown just as quickly. CPC and outcome optimized bidding now account for most campaigns, according to OpenAI. Advertisers can use Pixel and Conversions API measurement, product feeds, geographic targeting and custom audiences, while more than 50 technology and measurement partners connect businesses to the platform.
OpenAI says one ecommerce advertiser produced a 3x return on ad spend over 28 days, while one technology partner reported that more than 80% of traffic generated by ChatGPT ads came from new customers. Those are select examples supplied by OpenAI, so they shouldn't be treated as typical campaign performance. OpenAI also says it doesn't yet have reliable performance benchmarks across industries and campaign types.
Back in February, NCFA asked whether conversational advertising could develop into a new route for product discovery. Six months later, OpenAI has a US$1 billion annualized ad run rate, self service buying, conversion tools and tens of thousands of advertisers. Businesses will pay to advertise inside AI conversations, and enough of them are doing so to create a sizable new revenue stream.
Alec Shao, Newegg performance marketing manager, an advertiser on OpenAI's own ads site explains the attraction directly:
“We want Newegg to be part of the conversation when someone is researching what to buy.”
Google Still Owns the Scale, ChatGPT Has the Conversation
OpenAI isn't close to Google in advertising revenue. Alphabet reported US$81.63 billion of Google advertising revenue in Q2 2026. Search and other advertising alone generated US$63.27 billion, up from US$54.19 billion a year earlier.
Meta generated US$59.36 billion of Q2 advertising revenue, while Amazon generated US$19.81 billion from advertising services. OpenAI's roughly US$250 million quarterly equivalent makes clear how much ground separates a fast growing new entrant from established digital advertising businesses.
However, ChatGPT offers advertisers something those numbers don't capture. Search advertising usually begins with a query. Social advertising often begins with interests, behaviour and attention. Amazon can catch a shopper close to purchase. A ChatGPT conversation can contain a goal, budget, constraints, preferences and several rounds of comparison before an ad is selected.
OpenAI says its ad system considers the context and intent of the current conversation, the ad and landing page, advertiser supplied context hints and, when personalization is enabled, selected information from a user's wider ChatGPT experience. Advertiser hints describe relevant conversations, topics or keywords, but they aren't exact match search keywords.
The auction is already becoming familiar territory for performance marketers. OpenAI supports CPM and CPC buying and recommends starting CPC bids around US$3 to US$5. It says eligible ads compete through a relevance weighted second price auction.
Whether a detailed conversation produces a better customer than a search keyword hasn't been established. Advertisers now have enough buying and measurement tools to start finding out.
Regulators May Reach AI Advertising Earlier
Regulators may reach AI advertising earlier than they reached search and social platforms. Google is already operating under court ordered search remedies, while Amazon now faces allegations over how its ad auctions were priced. OpenAI is entering the same commercial territory with regulators already alert to distribution control, auction transparency, data use and platform power.
ChatGPT Ads is still small beside Google, Meta and Amazon, but it reached a US$1 billion annualized run rate in less than 200 days. Regulators may not need to wait for comparable scale before asking how the market works, especially if distribution, data or auction rules begin limiting competition.
Canada Can Test the Channel, With Limits
Canadian advertisers can already create and manage ChatGPT Ads through OpenAI's self service Ads Manager, with a minimum daily budget of C$25. Canadian financial firms face an important limit, though. OpenAI currently generally prohibits financial services ads outside the United States, where approved advertisers can be accepted case by case for products such as credit cards, mortgages, brokerages, insurance, loans and payments.
See: OpenAI Pulls Back From Checkout As Agentic Commerce Expands
OpenAI treats financial services as a restricted category requiring extra safeguards, including enhanced advertiser verification or manual review, and says advertisers may have to prove they are properly licensed.
Financial software, budgeting tools and educational products may have more room to experiment. For firms that can participate, can ChatGPT produce customers at a better cost and with stronger intent than search, social media, affiliates or other channels?
Talking Point
Will regulators act on AI advertising before market power becomes difficult to unwind?
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, artificial intelligence, 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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Coinbase Powers Webull Canada Crypto Expansion
August 31, 2026 | NCFA Market Activity | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Wealth Investing And Trading, Competition And Market Structure, Capital Markets And Market Infrastructure
Webull adds crypto after two years of building out its Canadian brokerage
On August 31, 2026, Coinbase announced its Webull Canada partnership, supplying the trading and custody services behind Webull's new Canadian crypto offering. Webull maintains the investor relationship and brokerage experience, while Coinbase handles two core crypto functions. The same partnership already supports Webull in the United States, Brazil and Australia.
Webull Canada Crypto Limited was registered as an Investment Dealer and admitted to CIRO membership effective June 17, 2026. Coinbase Canada, Inc. is registered as a Restricted Dealer across Canada.
Crypto arrives after Webull spent more than two years expanding its Canadian brokerage. It launched here in 2024 with Canadian and U.S. equities and later added registered accounts, options, cash management, desktop trading and longer trading hours. Canadian stocks and ETFs now trade at zero commission, while selected securities are available around the clock five days a week.
Webull Has Spent Two Years Expanding in Canada
When Webull entered Canada, its offering was much narrower. The company has since added enough products that crypto now joins an account already spanning stocks, options, cash, margin, TFSAs and RRSPs.
Using Coinbase lets Webull add crypto without building its own trading and custody systems from scratch. It can use infrastructure already supporting the same partnership elsewhere, reducing the amount of technology and operating capability Webull has to build internally.
Webull still has to persuade Canadians to use the product. The company reports 26 million registered users globally but doesn't disclose its Canadian customer count, leaving a large gap between the breadth of its local product menu and what outsiders can see about actual adoption.
Coinbase Can Earn Without Owning the Webull Customer
A Canadian investor trading crypto through Webull remains inside Webull's experience, but Coinbase can still earn from the trading and custody taking place underneath it.
Coinbase has been selling more of those capabilities to financial institutions. Its Crypto as a Service business targets banks, brokers, fintechs and payment companies that want to offer digital assets without building everything themselves. Coinbase said in 2025 that more than 200 institutional clients were already using its infrastructure.
Webull gives Coinbase another customer for that business while Coinbase continues competing directly for Canadian crypto users through its own platform. The two companies can pursue the same investor from different positions. Webull wants the account and ongoing customer relationship. Coinbase can benefit whether the investor chooses Coinbase directly or reaches its services through Webull.
Webull is relying on Coinbase for key parts of the service. If trading, custody, pricing or service problems arise, Webull still has to deal with the customer impact.
Webull Joins Canada's Build Versus Buy Competition
Webull isn't alone in combining its own customer experience with outside financial infrastructure. Wealthsimple offers stocks, cash and crypto from one relationship, while its regular crypto service uses external custodians including Tetra Trust, Coinbase Custody and BitGo. Its recent in app DEX trading beta uses a different model, creating a self custody wallet for the client and routing trades through a third party DEX aggregator.
Crypto focused firms such as Coinsquare, Newton and Shakepay started from a different approach, building their customer relationships around digital assets before adding more services. Webull started as a brokerage and is bringing crypto into an account already built around conventional investing.
Customers can now see a growing number of competing apps even when some important functions behind those apps come from the same suppliers. If several brokers rely on a small group of firms for custody, execution or liquidity, competition at the customer level can grow faster than the number of companies providing the underlying services.
Building everything internally isn't automatically better and often depends on the lifecycle stage of the firm and target customer base. It can preserve more control and economics, but it also brings technology, security, compliance and operating costs. Buying specialist infrastructure can get a product to market faster, provided the platform is comfortable with the dependency and the economics.
Crypto Gives Webull More to Sell Canadian Investors
Webull has removed many of the obvious product gaps since entering Canada. Investors can now trade Canadian and U.S. equities, options and crypto, use registered accounts and access longer trading hours. Another product won't automatically pull customers away from Wealthsimple, established brokerages or dedicated crypto platforms.
See: Wealthsimple Launches In App DEX Trading Beta
Existing Webull users may be the easiest audience. They can add crypto beside the rest of their portfolio without opening another trading relationship. Whether that convenience produces meaningful Canadian crypto activity won't be clear until Webull discloses more about adoption or the market provides other evidence.
Coinbase receives another benefit if the model continues to expand. Its Webull relationship now spans four countries, so a successful Canadian launch gives Coinbase another example it can use when selling trading and custody services to other financial firms. It doesn't need its name on the customer's home screen to participate in the transaction.
Webull and Coinbase are building different businesses from the same Canadian launch. One wants to own more of the investor relationship. The other can earn by supplying financial functions to companies that already have one.
Talking Point
As financial apps buy more of what they offer from specialist providers, who keeps more of the long term value: the company with the customer or the company running the service underneath?
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, artificial intelligence, 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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