A brief look back at week 47 at some of the news that’s not always picked up.
Winners of the fifth Annual Canadian Fintech & AI Awards
We know that Canada is a hotbed of fintech activity and last week The Digital Finance Institute announced the 2019 winners of the fifth Annual Canadian FinTech & AI Awards.
"The Institute's Awards recognize Canadian innovation and innovators in financial services and AI in Canada, and help promote Canada as a leading hub for technology innovation and research," says Ellis Odynn, the CEO of the Digital Finance Institute. "The Institute launched the Awards to celebrate Canadian innovation and build our tech community across the country and we're thrilled at how the Awards have grown in five years."
International experts judged the Awards from leading organizations that included Credit Suisse, the World Bank, Rolls-Royce, NASA, Lloyd's Bank, Amazon, Standard Chartered Bank, Airbnb, Hulu, Google, Cineplex, and LG Electronics.
The 2019 Winners are:
Canadian Bankers Association Bank Innovator of the Year Award - CIBC
Responsible Innovation in Financial Services Award - Scotiabank
HSBC Diversity & Inclusion in Innovation Award- Victoria Pelletier (IBM)
Scotiabank FemTech Leader of the Year Award - Debbie Gamble (Interac )
CIBC FinTech Startup of the Year Award - Symend
ICICI Bank FinTech Company of the Year Award - CinchyPaybright
Visa Entrepreneur / Innovation Leader of the Year Award - Kate Arthur (Kids Code Jeunesse)
ATB AI Company of the Year Award - Daisy Intelligence
Judges' Choice Award for Leadership - Darrell MacMullin (SecureKey)
Central 1 Credit Union of the Year Award - Meridian Credit Union
Investment Firm of the Year Award - Luge Capital
Advisory Firm of the Year Award - FinTech Growth Syndicate
Judges' Choice Award for Technology Impact - Applied Brain Research
Blockchain Company of the Year Award - nanopay
Law Firm of the Year Award - Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg
RegTech Solution of the Year Award - Exiger
Payments Company of the Year Award - Visa
Accelerator / Incubator of the Year Award- Accelerator Centre
The Awards were sponsored by ATB Financial, Canadian Bankers Association, Central 1, CIBC, HSBC Bank, ICICI Bank Canada, Payments Canada, Scotiabank, Visa Canada and Wildeboer Dellelce.
Moven selected
Moving over to Asia and we heard that Moven had been selected by the Asian Financial Society for its 2019 Annual Alpha Awards.
It’s the third annual awards program, designed to showcase innovation, acknowledge those innovations that disrupt the status quo in financial services and identify exceptional and investable fintech companies and entrepreneurs.
Marek Forysiak, chief executive officer of Moven, said: "It is an honor for Moven to be recognized and selected as an innovator by such a well-respected organization. APAC is becoming more and more strategic for Moven, as Asia is taking a lead globally with respect to technology and innovation when it comes to financial services.
This makes Moven's patented, financial-wellness technologies perfectly suited to help drive financial wellness and inclusion across the region and globally."
Wethaq launches first 'fintech' Sukuk
Over in Dubai and Wethaq announced that it has issued the first pilot Sukuk on its securities market infrastructure for the Islamic capital markets under the supervision of the Dubai Financial Services Authority.
Al Ghurair Investments LLC (AGI) acted as the issuer, advised by Mashreqbank PSC acting as lead arranger, R3 as protocol provider, Clifford Chance as legal counsel and the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre as mentor.
Wethaq's fintech infrastructure is developed on R3's Corda Protocol integrating SWIFT payment and settlement functionality through SWIFT gpi Link. This integrates with incumbent market infrastructures and avoids digital currencies and 'tokenisation' of securities.
The session was opened by Bryan Stirewalt, Chief Executive of the DFSA, who said that: "The DFSA's Innovation Testing Licence (ITL) programme is successfully encouraging and enabling innovation in the DIFC. Wethaq's pilot issuance is a great example of this effort and a great example for the future of Islamic finance. Innovation is pushing the boundaries of financial services through these new technologies as we witness their integration into existing and evolving business models."
Global RegTech market size to rise rapidly
The global regtech market size was USD 1370 million in 2018 and is expected to reach USD 6420 million by the end of 2025.
So says a new report which said that the high compliance costs and increased demand for regulatory information will drive regulatory technology adoption over the coming years.
And, increasing fines for failure to comply with the regulations are expected to drive development further.
The report explained that RegTech includes using software to improve regulatory stringency and mitigate business-related compliance risks. It said that a stable regulatory framework will help boost GDP growth by more than 2% per year..
It added that because of the increasing adoption of risk and compliance management solutions in large enterprises from different industry verticals has accounted for the highest regulatory technology market share in 2018. Providers of consulting services such as IBM, Deloitte, Thomson Reuters, and PwC help large companies realize the benefits of managing their business functions efficiently.
Funding
As for last week’s deals, we learnt from BlackFin Tech Weekly , that almost €60m was raised across EuropeThe UK and France led the way with two deals for each, followed by Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and the Netherlands with Seed and Series A rounds.