Sue Britton, Advisor, Corporate Innovation & Partnerships
September 26th, 2018
Sue Britton is CEO & Founder of FGS (FinTech Growth Syndicate) – Canada’s leading FinTech innova[...]
Swiss watchdog to propose looser anti-money laundering rules for fintechs
Reuters | Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi | Aug 28, 2018
ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss financial regulator FINMA is planning to loosen anti-money laundering rules for smaller financial technology firms, part of a drive to boost innovation and shore up the country’s position as a leading money management hub.The revisions, prompted by a new ‘fintech’ licensing category carved out by the Swiss parliament in June, will clarify how non-banks applying for the new license must ensure due diligence.
“As a rule, all financial institutions are subject to similar due-diligence requirements relating to combating money laundering. However, as most fintech license applicants are likely to be smaller institutions, FINMA proposes to introduce some organizational relaxations for such institutions,” the financial supervisor said in a statement on Tuesday.
Its proposal defines small institutions as those with gross revenues under 1.5 million Swiss francs ($1.5 million).
Under its terms small institutions, unlike banks, will not for instance have to establish an independent anti-money laundering unit with monitoring duties, it said.
The move comes after Switzerland’s parliament voted in June to amend the Swiss Banking Act, creating a new fintech license category to ease rules imposed on financial endeavors that take in funds and provide certain bank-like functions, but do not make money by investing or receiving interest on the funds.
See: Comprehensive Overview of Fintech in Switzerland H1 2018
Switzerland, the world’s largest center for offshore wealth, has gained prominence in recent years as a hub for financial technology providers, such as banking software groups Temenos (TEMN.S) and Avaloq AVLN.S, as well as cryptocurrency projects.
But advocates have warned that as banks face increasing margin pressure and tougher competition from technological rivals, more must be done to promote innovation if Switzerland is to remain a leading financial hub.
The new license, intended to promote financial innovation, will apply to groups which accept public deposits of up to 100 million francs but don’t invest the funds or pay interest.
It will likely have the biggest immediate impact on activities such as crowdfunding, which under current rules could often require a banking license.
Cryptocurrency projects — which often fall under anti-money laundering or securities regulations under FINMA’s current guidelines but generally don’t require a banking license — are unlikely to be affected by the changes.
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA Canada) is a cross-Canada non-profit actively engaged with fintech, alternative finance, blockchain, cryptocurrency, crowdfunding and online investing stakeholders globally. NCFA Canada provides education, research, industry stewardship, services, and networking opportunities to thousands of members and subscribers and works closely with industry, government, academia, community and eco-system partners and affiliates to create a strong and vibrant crowdfunding and fintech industry. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: ncfacanada.org
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Wharton | University of Pennsylvania | Jan 16, 2019 Open banking, a collaborative model in which banking data is shared with third-party players, is expected to revolutionize the financial services ecosystem. For consumers, the opening up of banking data could mean better control over their finances. At the same time, the trend has also raised concerns over data privacy and security. In a conversation with Knowledge@Wharton, Jane Barratt, chief advocacy officer at MX, a Utah-based company that provides data to financial institutions and fintechs, talks about how open banking will impact legacy institutions as well as nimble startups. Knowledge@Wharton: What is open banking? What are some of the factors that have led to the opening up of banking data to make it shareable via secure APIs [application programming interface] with third parties? Jane Barratt: Over the past decade or so, we have seen open government and other open initiatives. There’s an expectation now of increased transparency. The idea of people sharing their data — their financial data — is not a new one. It’s happening, and it’s happening with methods that aren’t necessarily private or secure or transparent. People don’t really know where their data is going. Open banking is basically accessing the ...
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Read More
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Read More
Read More
Complancex | The Compliance Exchange | Jan 15,2019 HSBC has settled $250 billion (£194.15 billion) worth of forex trades using blockchain in the last year, it said on Monday, suggesting the heavily hyped technology is gaining traction in a sector until now hesitant to embrace it. The bank has settled over three million forex trades and made over 150,000 payments since February using blockchain, it said in a statement. HSBC would not give data on forex trades settled by traditional processes, saying only that those settled by blockchain represented a “small” proportion. Still, the data marks a significant milestone in the use of blockchain by mainstream finance, which has until now been reluctant to start using the technology at any scale. Blockchain is a shared database that can process and settle transactions in minutes. Originally conceived to underpin the cryptocurrency bitcoin, the technology does not require third-parties for checks and its entries cannot be changed, making it highly secure. See: IBM will use blockchain to prevent counterfeiting of Seagate’s hard drives Cybersecurity, Blockchain And The Industrial Internet Of Things Banks and other financial firms have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the technology, hoping it will simplify and slash ...
Read More
Read More
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Read More
Read More
Investment Executive | James Langton | Jan 14, 2019 The regulator will look to scrap outdated rules, streamline disclosure requirements and make operational changes to enhance or speed up its dealings with the industry OSC Staff Notice Purpose Seek suggestions on ways to further reduce unnecessary regulatory burden. Announce a March 27, 2019, roundtable discussion on reducing regulatory burden. Introduction The Ontario Securities Commission (the OSC) has a statutory mandate under the Securities Act (the Act) to provide protection to investors from unfair, improper or fraudulent practices; to foster fair and efficient capital markets and confidence in capital markets; and to contribute to the stability of the financial system and the reduction of systemic risk. Under the Act, one of the fundamental principles guiding our work is that business and regulatory costs and other restrictions on the business and investment activities of market participants should be proportionate to the significance of the regulatory objective sought to be realized. See: NCFA Submission to Ontario Ministry of Finance: Urgent Need for Regulatory Change 11-780 Statement of Priorities – Request for Comment Regarding Statement of Priorities (the “SofP”) for Financial Year to End The OSC has several ongoing projects to reduce regulatory burden ...
Read More
Read More
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Read More
Read More
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Read More
Read More
Gaming Post | By Ben Hamill | Jan 7, 2019 In the latest industry news headlines, local Canadian company Ubique Networks has teamed up with Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) in order to launch a brand new eSports platform powered by blockchain. The agreement was officially inked on November 14 last year at the residence of the Sri Lankan-based Canadian High Commission. SLT’s eSports Platform is set to be powered by Ubique Networks’ Swarmio technology. This is a decentralized gaming platform with competitive undertones, which will enable virtual sports fans to organize and play in competitions on latency-optimized servers. Swarmio is the very first third-party Dapp created using the firm’s Q Network, and services more than 25,000 eSports players across the world. CEO of Ubique, Vijai Karthigesu, has noted that the SLT Platform will allow gamers in Sri Lanka to ‘raise their profiles’ to global levels. According to him, SLT is using the Swarmio platform and its Q Network to supply a strong solution to local Millennials. He also added that the company has further begun a project to construct a 5G mobile IoT (Internet of Things) for Smart Cities using the very same network. 5G Mobile IoT On the Way The ...
Read More
Read More
Fineqia Release | Bundeep Singh | Jan 9, 2019 LONDON, Jan. 9, 2019 /CNW/ - Fineqia International Inc. (the "Company" or "Fineqia") (CSE: FNQ) (OTC: FNQQF) (Frankfurt: FNQA) is pleased to announce its subsidiary Fineqia Limited, ("Fineqia Ltd") has partnered with Nivaura Limited ("Nivaura") to use its white-label capital markets platform to perform a fully automated tokenised bond issuance and administration, registered and cleared on a public Ethereum blockchain, to conduct its test for issuing crypto asset backed bonds. Fineqia Ltd's test is required as part of its acceptance into the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority's ('FCA') Sandbox Regulatory Program announced in July 2018. It was amongst 29 companies accepted out of 69 applicants that met the FCA Sandbox eligibility criteria. The test is set to take place in Q1 of 2019, with results also to be obtained in the first quarter. It will enable owners of crypto currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum to borrow fiat funds via the issuance of crypto asset backed bonds. The product has found appeal among institutional owners of crypto assets, such as miners, funds and exchanges, seeking liquidity but not keen on selling their crypto currencies. Fineqia's partnership with Nivaura allows for such institutional ...
Read More
Read More
Montreal in Tech | Steve La Barbera | Oct 29, 2019 Montreal’s newest startup accelerator isn’t afraid to try new things. The Holt accelerator, established earlier this year, has teamed up with Form Fintech and Lab Zed to produce what they are calling the first exhaustive map of Canada’s FinTech ecosystem. “We’re pretty well connected with the Canadian fintech community and we hadn’t seen anyone build anything like this, so we decided hey, let’s do it” says Jan Arp, Managing Partner and founder at the Holt Accelerator. “It’s an ecosystem map. There’s also some analysis in there so people can start to see who’s doing what across Canada. It’s what everyone’s been talking about, but we haven’t seen anything as comprehensive as this yet”. “The idea is that the more we can add the data and metrics, then the more interactive of a platform it can become for users” added Geraldine Holliday, Head of Digital Product at Form Fintech, who was part of the team building the map. “You’ll be able to see what stage each company is at, how much money have they raised… have they been part of different accelerators or incubators and so on…”. Her partner on this ...
Read More
Read More
Department of Finance Canada, Ottawa | Jan 11, 2019 Note from NCFA: the department of Finance is seeking consultations on the merits and risks on the prospect of Open Banking in Canada. The UK and Australia are already piling ahead. We encourage key stakeholders to either submit inputs to NCFA for aggregation to info@ncfacanada.org by Jan 31, 2019 and/or submit directly to the submission details that can be found below. January 11, 2019 – Ottawa, Ontario – Department of Finance Canada Canadians deserve a financial sector that is globally competitive and promotes consumer choice, while also delivering financial stability and economic growth. They must also have confidence that it operates with the highest regard for privacy and security. To this end, the Department of Finance Canada today released a consultation paper on the merits of open banking. The release of the paper and the launch of public consultations marks the next step in the Government's review of open banking, following the appointment of the Advisory Committee on Open Banking in September 2018. Open banking has the potential to offer a secure way for Canadian consumers—including small businesses—to consent to sharing their financial transaction data with financial service providers, allowing them ...
Read More
Read More
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