Canadian Fintech: Questrade went shopping 🛍️
New home equity entrant. EQ is the best share returning bank. TikTok v Shopify partner strategy.
Morning!
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💰 Funding
Mosea, an app for splitting group purchases, raised $2.5m. The platform has blown up on Canadian college campuses replacing the gone (but not forgotten) Tilt.
Clay Financial raised $1.7m to launch home equity sharing agreements (HESA) in Canada, an alternative to reverse mortgages like Bloom and second mortgages like Fraction.
FlipGive, a cash-back card for fundraising campaigns, raised $5m.
🤝 M&A
Flexiti, a point-of-sale lender was acquired by Questrade for $55m. This is the second time Flexiti has been acquired in two years. Curo, a subprime consumer lender, purchased them in 2021 for $155m.
Questrade is one of Canada’s most interesting up and coming financial institutions. They launched as a discount stock brokerage in 1999 but pushed into lending after acquiring Community Trust Co. in 2019.
Flexiti will be their second consumer lending product. QuestMortgage launched last year.
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🚀 Product
A tale of two e-com partnerships:
Shopify is allowing their merchants to offer a “Buy with Prime” option at checkout. This means Amazon provides fulfilment and Shopify provides payment.
TikTok removed it’s “storefronts” feature, in favour of their own e-com platform. This means Shopify no longer can own the checkout experience and TikTok is becoming an island.
Meridian Credit Union has partnered with Fundmore, to redesign their mortgage origination system.
Coinbase has partnered with Trustly to offer account-to-account payments in Canada.
📊 Chart of the week
EQ Bank is the best total share returning bank over the last 10 years. Why? They have become dominant in niche sectors - equipment finance, alt-a mortgages, reverse mortgages & specialty finance (revenue drivers) while also building out a killer online consumer banking platform (deposit drivers).
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Have a great week! See ya 👋
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