Canadian Fintech: TD & Plaid make up 😘
Synctera launched in Canada. Why Paramount acquired Clik2Pay. Woveo raises Seed.
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💰 Funding
Virtuo, a concierge service for new homeowners (finding a plumber, mail forwarding, answering general questions about the property, etc.) raised $3.5m.
Virtuo partners with home developers to distribute their service to end clients.
Leav, a mobile app that allows in-store shoppers to scan items on the shelf and checkout immediately raised $2.3m.
Durable, a website building tool, raised $18m.
These guys want to become “Shopify for service based businesses” by introducing admin tools like invoicing, insurance & bookkeeping.
Woveo, a rotating group savings platform, raised $2.3m. I explain how these work here.
🤝 M&A
Paramount Commerce, a pay-by-bank provider, acquired competitor Clik2pay. Why?
Both payment companies resell Interac e-Transfer, but Clik2pay gives Paramount market share in the lending & telco market. These clients use Interac for collections.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH SYNCTERA
Synctera’s platform is officially live in Canada! We’re excited to help unlock financial innovation in Canada by enabling businesses to launch amazing banking products.
Our platform provides the technology infrastructure and compliance framework necessary to build, launch, and scale innovative fintech and embedded finance products in Canada.
Using a robust set of APIs, access all of the technology and capabilities you need to launch banking, card, and money movement products tailored to the needs of your unique customers. Once live, efficiently manage and scale your banking product with our Console, set of data and reporting tools, and team of compliance experts.
Learn more and get in touch with our team using the link below.
🚀 Product
TD signed a data sharing agreement with Plaid. You can find other Canadian banks that have signed similar partnerships here.
Don’t worry, nobody even remembers that time TD sued Plaid in 2020 for false advertising and copyright infringement.
Coesus Advisor, a portfolio management system has partnered with Mako Financial, to automated KYC and document upload.
Coinsquare, a crypto exchange has partnered with Meetami, a tool for wealth advisors to help their clients get into crypto.
Coinsquare will develop educational content for Meetami’s training portal
Synctera, a platform for fintechs to launch products in partnership with regulated banks has officially launched in Canada.
⚖️ Policy
Interchange fees in Canada have been capped at 0.95% for small businesses. How small? Super duper small… merchants with less than $300k in Visa sales and under $175k in Mastercard sales.
In the EU, interchange fees are capped at 0.3% across the board.
The maximum allowable rate of interest in Canada will be capped at 35% APR.
This will likely push deep subprime consumer borrowers towards payday lenders.
Business loans & pawnbroker loans are exempt and can still be written at 47%.
📈 Stat of the week
$1 billion: the reduction in total float value in the first 5 years after introducing the Real-Time Rail (RTR).
What is float?
The non-real time payment options available to Canadians today (EFT & online transfers) have a time lag between when the payer’s funds are debited and when the payee is credited.
During this time lag, banks are holding funds and collecting interest on them.
RTR eliminates this delay, which distributes back the interest gains to the payees.
See the full 5 year float value breakdown from the C.D. Howe Institute below.
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Have a great week! See ya 👋