Canadian Fintech: DC Bank's Acquisition 🏦
Helcim opens up to developers. Balance incorporates as a trust.
Good morning! Welcome back to Canadian Fintech, a newsletter for founders, operators & investors.
This week we’ve partnered with Flinks to do a deep dive webinar on Canadian payments. You can register for it here.
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💰 Funding
Argo, a Toronto based marketplace for 24/7 gold trading received investment from Wonderfi, a Canadian crypto exchange.
Argo launched their fund earlier this year.
🤝 M&A
Jasper Commerce, a product information management (PIM) tool was acquired by DC Bank for $1.5m. Why?
DC Bank has a large merchant payments business. They are a major issuer and processor for pre-paid cards and also offer digital wallets and tools for identity verification.
Jasper helps merchants organize their inventory data and syncs them to e-commerce platforms like Shopify.
Jasper & DC Bank are both targeting merchants building out their online stores. This deal lets DC sell more than just payments to its customers.
Canada’s first interprovince credit union merger was approved.
ABCU Credit Union and Innovation Federal Credit Union announced their merger at the beginning of this year.
Freelance.ca, a Quebec City based marketplace for Canadians to find project based work acquired Montreal based competitor, Workhoppers.
A MESSAGE FROM FLINKS
3 Pillars of an Efficient Payments Strategy
As payments in Canada evolve and systems become more modernized, adopting a strategy that balances cost, risk, and conversion is becoming increasingly important.
Join Eddie Beqaj, Head of Customer Management, and Joseph Hargreaves, Senior Product Manager, on July 10th, 11 am EST as they highlight some of the current pain points within the payments landscape and how these insights have shaped the development of Flinks Pay.
Key takeaways for this live session include:
The current landscape of payments in Canada
Understanding and balancing the 3 pillars of your payments strategy
A deep dive into the Flinks Pay roadmap and what's to come
🚀 Product
Helcim, a Calgary based payment facilitator launched a service for developers to integrate credit card and ACH acceptance into their platforms.
This expands Helcim’s customers from merchants to the software partners that their merchants use (CRMs, POS systems, accounting software, etc.)
Sezzle, a BNPL, is gamifying how their Canadian borrowers repay them, by offering rewards for “payment streaks” similar to Duolingo.
Notch, an AR platform for wholesalers to the food / beverage industry launched a payment portal.
This is a common feature for invoicing platforms to enable self-serve bill pay.
Balance, a digital asset custodian, was incorporated as a special purpose trust in Alberta.
This will allow them to service public fund issuers, broker-dealers, and advisors.
They will also eventually expand beyond digital assets to fiat.
📈 Stat of the week
96 - the amount of Canadian university alumni who have become founders of US unicorns.
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Have a great week! See ya 👋