Sue Britton, Advisor, Corporate Innovation & Partnerships
September 26th, 2018
Sue Britton is CEO & Founder of FGS (FinTech Growth Syndicate) – Canada’s leading FinTech innova[...]
When the Tide Goes Out: Big Questions for Crypto in 2019
Coindesk | Gary Gensler | Dec 17, 2018
Gary Gensler is a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under President Barack Obama, a Senior advisor to the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative and Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he currently teaches several classes on blockchain technology and crypto finance.
After this year’s wild market ride and so many failed projects, what might Satoshi Nakamoto’s innovative “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” mean for money and finance in 2019 and beyond?
Satoshi’s innovation – the use of append-only timestamped logs, secured by cryptography, amongst multiple parties, forming consensus on a shared ledger – needs to be taken seriously. The resulting blockchains of data can form widely verifiable peer-to-peer databases.
For any chance of a lasting role in the long evolution of money, though, blockchain applications and crypto assets have to deliver real economic results for users. And while bringing the crypto finance markets within public policy norms is critical, the greatest challenge remains the seriousness of commercial use cases.
A bunch of hype masquerading as fact won’t do it.
What We’ve Learned
Blockchain technology and crypto tokens provide an alternative means to move value on the Internet without relying upon a central intermediary. They promise the potential to lower verification and networking costs, ranging from censorship, privacy, reconciliation and settlement costs to the costs of jump starting and maintaining a network.
These features tie blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies directly to the essential plumbing of the financial sector, which at its core has the role of efficiently moving, allocating and pricing money and risk within an economy. It could lower costs, risks and economic rents in the financial system, which represents 7.5 percent of U.S. GDP.
See: Experts predict the five big fintech trends of 2019
To do so, though, blockchain technology must address its many technical and commercial challenges – scalability, efficiency, privacy, security, interoperability and governance. Industry reforms and regulations also must bring order to the markets surrounding this technology, especially for crypto exchanges and initial coin offerings.
In the meantime, the financial sector is mainly exploring private blockchain applications – without native tokens – built on software such as Hyperledger Fabric, R3 Corda or Quorum.
Any use case’s value proposition needs to be rigorously compared with simply using a traditional data base. In particular, any token offering must address how it will sustainably lower verification or networking costs – how such crypto asset benefits users more than simply using broadly accepted fiat currencies. While money is but a social construct, its history tells us that there are overwhelming network benefits when a currency is widely used and accepted for all three roles of money – as a unit of account, medium of exchange and store of value.
In essence, how might any blockchain technology project or any initial coin offering’s (‘ICO’) proposed token be more than simply a means to raise cheap money from the public? In 2019 and beyond, venture capitalists, large incumbents and crypto investors will likely be more discerning and rigorous in their investments and projects.
Public Policy Frameworks
The crypto finance markets can only gain public confidence and reach their potential by coming within long-established public policy frameworks. As with any other technology, we must guard against illicit activities, such as tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist financing and avoiding sanctions.
We must promote fair and open competition while ensuring for financial stability. We must protect investors and consumers.
While criminals have often exploited the existing financial system for money laundering, cryptocurrencies have given bad actors new ways to conduct old crimes. Dark markets conduct sales of illegal drugs and other contraband using cryptocurrencies. State actors, such as Venezuela, Russia, and Iran have used crypto finance to undermine U.S. policies. Additionally, cryptocurrencies add new challenges to global tax compliance.
What investor protection does exist in crypto markets seems little more than an effort to stay ahead of law enforcement’s and regulators’ attention.
Crypto Exchanges
Most crypto exchanges are unregistered. Manipulative behavior goes unchecked and billions of dollars in customers’ tokens have been stolen. Compared to traditional financial exchanges, they lack intermediation through regulated broker-dealers. Further, according to CryptoCompare’s October Exchange Review, only 47 percent of exchanges impose strict know-your-customer (‘KYC’) requirements.
See: Crypto Bear Market Gives UK Regulators Breathing Space to Finalize Crypto Regulation
Safeguards to date – treating crypto exchanges and digital wallet providers through money transmission laws in the same manner as Western Union or MoneyGram – are unsatisfactory.
Crypto exchanges are trading venues and need be treated as such, with mandated investor protections in place. Front running and other manipulative behavior needs to be banned. Exchanges need to fully comply with anti-money laundering laws and seriously fix or consider spinning off their custodial functions.
In 2019 and beyond, we will see multiple exchanges register in the U.S. – those trading ICO tokens will register as broker-dealers under Regulation ATS and Intercontinental Exchange’s new Bakkt exchangewill register and operate under the Commodities Exchange Act.
We’re also likely to see declining operating margins and consolidation in the more than 200 crypto exchanges.
Initial Coin Offerings
Of the thousands of ICOs to date, many have failed, and investors have lost billions. A recent EY studyreported that through the third quarter of 2018, 86 percent of the top ICOs of 2017 were trading below their listing price and only 13 percent actually have a working product.
Filecoin, for instance, raised over $250 million in October 2017 but is not due to go live until mid-2019. Academic and market studies also have found the ICO market rife with scams and frauds.
Debates have raged around the globe about how cryptocurrencies, and particularly ICOs, fit within existing securities, commodities and derivatives laws. Many contend that so-called ‘utility tokens’ sold for future consumption are not investment contracts – but this is a false distinction.
See: New eToro Survey Reveals Strong Interest in Cryptoasset Education, Despite Market Downturn
By their very design, ICOs mix economic attributes of both consumption and investment. ICO tokens’ realities – their risks, expectation of profits, reliance on the efforts of others, manner of marketing, exchange trading, limited supply, and capital formation — are attributes of investment offerings.
In the U.S., nearly all ICOs would meet the Supreme Court’s ‘Howey Test’ defining an investment contract under securities laws. As poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote over 100 years ago: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”
In 2019, we’re likely to continue seeing high ICO failure rates while funding totals decline. Regulators and the courts will bring added clarity to the market through increased numbers of enforcement cases and related private litigation.
Central Banks
Central banks are studying blockchain technology and crypto markets with one eye on financial stability and another eye on what it means for the fiat currencies they issue and oversee.
Canada’s project Jasper and Singapore’s project Ubin are exploring use of permissioned blockchain applications to update payment systems.
See: IMF: Nations Need to Consider a Central Bank Backed Cryptocurrency
While the policy challenges are significant, some Central Banks also are considering giving the public access to central bank payment systems and digital reserves through so-called ‘central bank digital currency’ (CBDC). Two countries’ review – one strong and one in distress – are noteworthy. In Sweden, use of paper-based Krona has declined and the Riksbank, the world’s oldest central bank, is pursuing an e-Krona project to provide electronic central bank money directly to the public.
Venezuela, facing hyperinflation, economic instability, and sanctions is promoting public use of a purportedly oil-backed token, Petro, though there are reports that seriously question the token’s legitimacy.
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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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
Toronto Foundation | January 2019 Toronto Foundation has long been dedicated to supporting positive social and environmental change to make life more equitable for everyone. Now, for the first time in our history, we are excited to offer Social Impact Investments to the public through an open call for proposals. These one-time investments, made in partnership with MaRS Centre for Impact Investing, will range from $250,000 to $1,000,000 and will go to approximately five Ontario-based organizations that are creating positive social and environmental change for people across Ontario. A total of approximately $1.6M will be invested. The 2019 Social Impact Investment call for proposals is now open and will close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 20, 2019. Access the submission guidelines (here) and application form (here). If you have questions about applying, please direct them to Jaymin Kim at jkim@marsdd.com with subject line “Question: Toronto Foundation Social Impact Investment” by 5pm on Friday, January 25, 2019. Answers to all questions received will be posted on Toronto Foundation’s website on Wednesday, January 30, 2019. See: How Fintech Is Transforming Microfinance What is Social Impact Investing? Social impact investing, also known as social finance or impact investing, is designed to generate both a ...
Read More
Data Driven Investor | Roberto Iriondo | Oct 15, 2019 Why do tech companies tend to use AI and ML interchangeably? Unfortunately, some tech organizations are deceiving customers by proclaiming using AI on their technologies while not being clear about their products’ limits The term “artificial intelligence” came to inception in 1956 by a group of researchers including Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon [9], AI’s industry has gone through many fluctuations. In the early decades, there was a lot of hype surrounding the industry, and many scientists concurred that human-level AI was just around the corner. However, undelivered assertions caused a general disenchantment with the industry along the public and led to the AI winter, a period where funding and interest in the field subsided considerably. Afterwards, organizations attempted to separate themselves with the term AI, which had become synonymous with unsubstantiated hype, and utilized different terms to refer to their work. For instance, IBM described Deep Blue as a supercomputer and explicitly stated that it did not use artificial intelligence [10], while it actually did. See: The Age of Artificial Intelligence in Fintech How Data-driven Strategies Can Improve Impact Investing Outcomes During this period, a variety of other ...
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
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
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
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
NCFA Canada | Jan 11, 2019 JOIN US ON A STORYTELLING JOURNEY EVERY FRIDAY. Ep20-Jan 11: Bitcoin Backed Loans and 2x Credit - Putting Your Crypto to Work About this episode: To kick off Season 2, NCFA Fintech Fridays show host Manseeb Khan sits down with the CSO of Ledn Inc.. Mauricio Di Bartolomeo. They chatted about what crypto backed loans are, going global and saving the world. Enjoy! Experiencing the dismantling of the Venezuelan economy; a broken financial system The use case and value of collateralizing digital assets Libertarian aspects of bitcoin and how it is benefiting the people outside of North America or in tyrannical regimes Host: Manseeb Khan, NCFA, Fintech Fridays show host Guest: MAURICIO DI BARTOLOMEO, Co-Founder and CSO (Ledn Inc. | LinkedIn | mauricio@ledn.io) Bio: Mauricio Di Bartolomeo is the Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Ledn Inc., a financial services company built for Bitcoin & digital assets. The company underwrote Canada's first-ever Bitcoin-backed loan in 2018 and has since been lending to Bitcoin holders across Canada. Mauricio has been involved in Bitcoin since 2014 - when in Venezuela he learned that friends were using it earn an income by mining it & protecting their ...
Read More
UK Telegraph, Tech | Joseph Archer | Jan 7, 2019 Fundraising on online platforms remains popular with companies in AI and fintech despite the risks, according to Crowdcube. The Exeter-based crowdfunding site said it saw revenues rise 50pc to £6m last year, up from £4m in 2017. Investments pledged by its users to growing companies increased by 72 per cent to £224m, from £130m the previous year. The record results follow the sucess of fintech businesses Monzo and Revolut, that used Crowdcube to raise funds, valuing them at more than £1bn last year. Crowdcube told The Daily Telegraph that the fourth quarter of 2018 was its most successful ever with pledged investments rising 94 per cent to £84.6m compared to last year. See: World’s Largest: OurCrowd Still on Track to Top USD $1 Billion in Investment Crowdfunding $5 million Equity crowdfunding extended to private companies Luke Lang, co-founder of Crowdcube, said: “It is great to see these positive results against a generally negative economic landscape and the uncertainty Brexit is causing. “I want to see more ‘Monzos’ happen, and I think it will because more and more entrepreneurs are turning to equity crowdfunding now as the way to start their ideas.” In Monzo’s most recent ...
Read More
Wharton University | Jan 10, 2019 Data science is making inroads into the world of impact investing, helping program designers and beneficiaries achieve closer alignment between their goals and strategies. While some are building on models from the business world to correlate different pieces of ecosystems to understand how impact flows, others are attempting to marshal next-generation digital technologies such as blockchain to improve outcomes in areas such as disaster response and land titling. The Rockefeller Foundation has been designing ways to harness data effectively in order to improve the effectiveness of impact investing. “Data really helps you understand the nature of the problem, and thinking about data ahead of time helps you structure your experiments and your interventions,” said Zia Khan, vice president of initiatives and strategy at the foundation. “Measuring data helps you prove what works, what doesn’t work, and then you can monitor and scale things up.” The data movement is infectious. Khan said he sees “increasing appetite to learn more from some of the countries that have done some breakthrough work,” such as Estonia and India. In particular, he cited India’s biometrics-based identification system called Aadhaar, which has enabled millions of previously undocumented residents to open ...
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
Toronto Foundation | January 2019 Toronto Foundation has long been dedicated to supporting positive social and environmental change to make life more equitable for everyone. Now, for the first time in our history, we are excited to offer Social Impact Investments to the public through an open call for proposals. These one-time investments, made in partnership with MaRS Centre for Impact Investing, will range from $250,000 to $1,000,000 and will go to approximately five Ontario-based organizations that are creating positive social and environmental change for people across Ontario. A total of approximately $1.6M will be invested. The 2019 Social Impact Investment call for proposals is now open and will close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 20, 2019. Access the submission guidelines (here) and application form (here). If you have questions about applying, please direct them to Jaymin Kim at jkim@marsdd.com with subject line “Question: Toronto Foundation Social Impact Investment” by 5pm on Friday, January 25, 2019. Answers to all questions received will be posted on Toronto Foundation’s website on Wednesday, January 30, 2019. See: How Fintech Is Transforming Microfinance What is Social Impact Investing? Social impact investing, also known as social finance or impact investing, is designed to generate both a ...
Read More
Read More
Data Driven Investor | Roberto Iriondo | Oct 15, 2019 Why do tech companies tend to use AI and ML interchangeably? Unfortunately, some tech organizations are deceiving customers by proclaiming using AI on their technologies while not being clear about their products’ limits The term “artificial intelligence” came to inception in 1956 by a group of researchers including Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon [9], AI’s industry has gone through many fluctuations. In the early decades, there was a lot of hype surrounding the industry, and many scientists concurred that human-level AI was just around the corner. However, undelivered assertions caused a general disenchantment with the industry along the public and led to the AI winter, a period where funding and interest in the field subsided considerably. Afterwards, organizations attempted to separate themselves with the term AI, which had become synonymous with unsubstantiated hype, and utilized different terms to refer to their work. For instance, IBM described Deep Blue as a supercomputer and explicitly stated that it did not use artificial intelligence [10], while it actually did. See: The Age of Artificial Intelligence in Fintech How Data-driven Strategies Can Improve Impact Investing Outcomes During this period, a variety of other ...
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
NCFA Canada | Jan 11, 2019 JOIN US ON A STORYTELLING JOURNEY EVERY FRIDAY. Ep20-Jan 11: Bitcoin Backed Loans and 2x Credit - Putting Your Crypto to Work About this episode: To kick off Season 2, NCFA Fintech Fridays show host Manseeb Khan sits down with the CSO of Ledn Inc.. Mauricio Di Bartolomeo. They chatted about what crypto backed loans are, going global and saving the world. Enjoy! Experiencing the dismantling of the Venezuelan economy; a broken financial system The use case and value of collateralizing digital assets Libertarian aspects of bitcoin and how it is benefiting the people outside of North America or in tyrannical regimes Host: Manseeb Khan, NCFA, Fintech Fridays show host Guest: MAURICIO DI BARTOLOMEO, Co-Founder and CSO (Ledn Inc. | LinkedIn | mauricio@ledn.io) Bio: Mauricio Di Bartolomeo is the Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Ledn Inc., a financial services company built for Bitcoin & digital assets. The company underwrote Canada's first-ever Bitcoin-backed loan in 2018 and has since been lending to Bitcoin holders across Canada. Mauricio has been involved in Bitcoin since 2014 - when in Venezuela he learned that friends were using it earn an income by mining it & protecting their ...
Read More
Read More
UK Telegraph, Tech | Joseph Archer | Jan 7, 2019 Fundraising on online platforms remains popular with companies in AI and fintech despite the risks, according to Crowdcube. The Exeter-based crowdfunding site said it saw revenues rise 50pc to £6m last year, up from £4m in 2017. Investments pledged by its users to growing companies increased by 72 per cent to £224m, from £130m the previous year. The record results follow the sucess of fintech businesses Monzo and Revolut, that used Crowdcube to raise funds, valuing them at more than £1bn last year. Crowdcube told The Daily Telegraph that the fourth quarter of 2018 was its most successful ever with pledged investments rising 94 per cent to £84.6m compared to last year. See: World’s Largest: OurCrowd Still on Track to Top USD $1 Billion in Investment Crowdfunding $5 million Equity crowdfunding extended to private companies Luke Lang, co-founder of Crowdcube, said: “It is great to see these positive results against a generally negative economic landscape and the uncertainty Brexit is causing. “I want to see more ‘Monzos’ happen, and I think it will because more and more entrepreneurs are turning to equity crowdfunding now as the way to start their ideas.” In Monzo’s most recent ...
Read More
Read More
Wharton University | Jan 10, 2019 Data science is making inroads into the world of impact investing, helping program designers and beneficiaries achieve closer alignment between their goals and strategies. While some are building on models from the business world to correlate different pieces of ecosystems to understand how impact flows, others are attempting to marshal next-generation digital technologies such as blockchain to improve outcomes in areas such as disaster response and land titling. The Rockefeller Foundation has been designing ways to harness data effectively in order to improve the effectiveness of impact investing. “Data really helps you understand the nature of the problem, and thinking about data ahead of time helps you structure your experiments and your interventions,” said Zia Khan, vice president of initiatives and strategy at the foundation. “Measuring data helps you prove what works, what doesn’t work, and then you can monitor and scale things up.” The data movement is infectious. Khan said he sees “increasing appetite to learn more from some of the countries that have done some breakthrough work,” such as Estonia and India. In particular, he cited India’s biometrics-based identification system called Aadhaar, which has enabled millions of previously undocumented residents to open ...
Read More
Read More
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