March 27, 2019 /Financial Post/ – Innovation Nation: Canada is lagging its global peers in adopting new financial technologies and more co-operation between established banks and startup fintechs would help
Canada has a rich history of innovation, but in the next few decades, powerful technological forces will transform the global economy. Large multinational companies have jumped out to a headstart in the race to succeed, and Canada runs the risk of falling behind. At stake is nothing less than our prosperity and economic well-being. The Financial Post set out explore what is needed for businesses to flourish and grow. You can find all of our coverage here.
The federal government put the word out last July: it needed someone to study the landscape for financial technology companies, or fintechs, and figure out how they were getting along with the big banks and other financial institutions.
Sue Britton’s firm, Toronto-based Fintech Growth Syndicate Inc., won the contract for the study. In January, the group said it turned in a 240-page report, the first of its kind in Canada, that used only publicly available data sourced from more than 60 different websites.
What it found, among other things, was that there were approximately 1,000 fintechs across Canada offering services or products related to crowdfunding, insurance, wealth management, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, capital markets, lending and payments.