FAIR Canada  |  Ermanno Pascutto | October 25, 2013

Crowdfunding is an innovative idea. But like anything that promises to be a game-changer, it has both benefits and drawbacks that need to be considered.

On the plus side, many people would like to be able to assist a friend or neighbour launch a new business, product, or idea, help someone in need, or pre-purchase the latest innovative product, such as the Pebble smartwatch — and crowdfunding can do just that. These are all examples of good crowdfunding.

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However, the deregulation of securities laws to allow anyone to make investments via equity crowdfunding is a like the Titanic heading into iceberg alley. Equity crowdfunding abandons fundamental principles that have made Canadian markets among the most successful at raising risk capital, including full disclosure, due diligence, insider regulation and the role of a professional financial advisor. These are the negatives of crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding combines the ease of technology with the promise of potential lottery-sized winnings. However, in a lottery, there is a regulator that ensures the integrity of the system, including money coming into the lottery and money paid to vendors and to winning players. Deregulated securities rules will not prevent crowdfunding from being a rigged game.

Equity crowdfunding through a “portal” will expose thousands of individuals to investments in startup businesses through the Internet. With crowdfunding, investors send money in exchange for an intangible right — and they will not know what happens to their money. Will the company use the money for the purpose for which it was intended, or will it end up sending the funds offshore or moving it to another project? Will the company simply pay its executives’ and friends’ large salaries or fees? How will the investor or the regulators ever know?

Regulators are proposing investment limits of $2,500 per investment and $10,000 in a calendar year per person. Although these limits may be small by Bay Street standards, they’re quite high for the majority of Canadians. Recent statistics show the median individual income of Canadians at $27,600 and the median family income is $76,000. Given the very high risk and illiquid nature of any crowdfunding investment — even if the investment limits are complied with (and regulators have not proposed robust measures to ensure they will be) — many investors may lose much more than they can afford to.

Instead of seeking professional advice and putting their money into lower-risk investments that will allow them to accumulate savings for their retirement or other financial goals, investors will be gambling with high-risk speculative investments. Not only is a return unlikely; there is also a high probability that they will lose their entire investment.

Many consumers will not understand the high risk of failure and fraud, or the fact that they cannot resell the investment. They will not have sufficient skepticism of the unrealistic returns touted by promoters — and there will be “promoters.”

A recent investor survey commissioned by the Ontario Securities Commission demonstrates that people interested in equity crowdfunding do not know how risky it is. (Only 52% deemed it high risk while 45% thought it was medium risk.) Even more disturbing is that 12% of the respondents who identified themselves as having “low-risk” tolerance were strongly interested in equity crowdfunding.

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Proponents of equity crowdfunding suggest that the crowd will be able to detect fraud and weed out the bad actors. Experience and research clearly demonstrate that this is not the case. Instead, investors become victims of fraud at an alarming rate.

Regulators are likely to proceed with implementing an equity crowdfunding model. Although the Canadian Foundation for Advancement of Investor Rights does not support an equity crowdfunding exemption, we have suggestions to limit fraud and potential losses including:

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