Canadian Fintech: Banks Are Not Stressed 😅
Interac launches reusable identity product. Shakepay joins Payments Canada.
Good morning! Welcome back to the Canadian Fintech Newsletter, an industry roundup for founders, operators and investors.
Every Monday we break down the hottest topics in the industry in under 3 minutes.
I’m excited to share that the agenda for the Canadian Finance Summit just dropped!
This is a conference I personally curate each year for nearly 1,000 attendees. It’s designed to cut through the noise and focus on where Canada’s finance industry is really headed - and to connect you with the people who are building it.
You’ll hear from the most senior leaders in Canadian banking and fintech like:
Rob Khazzam, the CEO of Float
John Landry, the CEO of Peoples Group
Michael Garrity, the Chairman of Financeit
Scott Wood, the CEO of Fairstone Bank
Tracy Graf, the CEO of Santander Bank
Dan Park, the CEO of Clutch
And if you’re a paid subscriber to this newsletter, you get a discount!
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💰 Funding
Unblocked, a Vancouver based devops tool, raised USD $20m from B Capital, Radical Ventures and Artisanal Ventures.
The AI chat based tool connects a company’s workspaces (Jira, Slack, etc.) and allows employees to ask questions about internal practices and context about codebases.
Amilia, a Montreal based vertical software for community centres raised $35m from Vertu Capital, EDC, CBGF, and Investissement Quebec.
The company lets orgs like the YMCA and JCC to manage online registration, memberships, payments and facility bookings.
🤝 M&A
XTAO, a Canadian founded blockchain company built on the Bittensor network merged with Adrianna Ventures in order to go public on the TSXV.
The company is founded by one of the co-founders of WonderFi, the Canadian crypto exchange.
🚀 Product
Dream Payments launched a payments platform for insurers to collect premiums and disburse claims in partnership with JP Morgan Payments.
FinChat, a public equities research tool launched custom summaries of corporate filings and press releases.
Interac, Canada’s debit system launched a reusable digital identity product.
Canadians can verify themselves with Interac via bank account login, uploading a gov-issued ID, or video selfie once and reuse it to login into partner sites for up to 12 months.
Interac has pushed into the ID verification space since its acquiring 2Keys in 2019 and SecureKey in 2021.
Episode Six, a US based card issuing infrastructure launched in Canada through a partnership with Berkeley Payments, a Canadian competitor.
Episode Six also recently partnered with Yoo Financial, a Canadian subsidiary of OTT Pay, a Toronto based gateway focused on Chinese payment methods like Alipay, UnionPay and WeChat Pay.
Square, a US based POS, is consolidating their Canadian industry specific products (Square Retail, Restaurants, Invoicing, etc.) into one mobile app.
⚖️ Policy
Shakepay, a Montreal based crypto banking platform and registered securities dealer, joined Payments Canada.
Becoming a member is the first step to obtaining access to Canada’s payment infrastructure, including Lynx, the ACSS and the upcoming Real-Time Rail (RTR).
Canadian banks are well positioned to withstand an economic shock worse than the 2008 Recession and the COVID crisis without breaching regulatory capital requirements according to a stress test report conducted by the Bank of Canada and the IMF.
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Have a great week! See ya 👋