Canadian Fintech: Richest person to ever go to prison 👮
TD's massive AML collapse. SVB's last major business is being sold.
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🤝 M&A
Fluence, a Toronto based FP&A software was acquired by Anaplan, a US rival.
Fluence has also made international acquisitions: XLCubed (Italy) & Sturnis365 (UK) three years ago.
Bitbuy (a division of WonderFi) has acquired the Canadian customers of Bitstamp, a rival crypto exchange who pulled out of Canada.
GroupeX Solutions, a Toronto based HR professional services firm was acquired by much larger French rival, HR Path.
SVB’s VC business is being sold off to Pinegrove, a fund launched in part by Brookfield.
🚀 Product
Portfolio+, launched a loan management system for reverse mortgages, betting that lenders will start servicing Canada’s aging population with the product.
CHIP, EQ Bank, & Bloom are the best known lenders in this space.
Final Offer, a transparent home bidding platform that reveals the last highest bid, launched in Canada.
Digital ID for gov services is starting to light up:
The CRA has integrated Interac’s document verification service for user sign-in.
The province of Alberta has integrated ATB backed Oliu to sign into gov websites.
Symcor launched a payee verification service to prevent authorized push payment (APP) fraud.
APP fraud is when someone is deceived into sending money to a fraudster's account.
With the rise of non-reversible p2p payments, this type of fraud is on the rise.
Symcor is best known for payment processing and recently has been considered a frontrunner to implement open banking infrastructure.
Insurdinary, a rate comparison tool for insurance and loans launched a budgeting app.
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⚖️ Policy
TD Bank (TD’s US subsidiary) was involved in a major drug money laundering scheme. What will the consequences be?
This is going to lead to a big ol’ fine, likely in the billions of dollars.
This could hamper expansion into TD’s largest growth market even further. Remember that their takeover of Memphis based First Horizon Bank was blocked by US regulators last year.
An overhaul of its North American AML teams & a $500m investment into system upgrades - this is already underway.
The Canadian-Chinese founder of Binance has been sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering.
He will be the richest person ever incarcerated in a US federal prison, at a whopping $43b… sorry SBF.
👀 Who’s hiring?
Creditbook (Technical Project Manager) - Montreal
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Have a great week! See ya 👋