In our brave new world, not all use cases are good
By Alex Vronces The frequency with which authors included the term “use cases” in their books exploded in the late 1980s. That’s when Ivar Jacobson, a computer scientist and software engineer, introduced “uses cases” at OOPSLA, an annual programming conference. Much has changed, technologically speaking, since then, but use cases, as a concept, have […]
Open banking’s philosophical war is being waged on the foggy hill of context
By: Alex Vronces, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada Depending on whom you ask, Canada is either lagging behind the world in open banking or leading it. “We’re already past the point of falling behind other countries,” said Colin Deacon, a Canadian senator, at a virtual event about open banking this year. “It disproportionately negatively affects […]
Open banking and payments modernization: running away from opportunity
By: Alex Vronces, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada When it comes to open banking, Canada is putting off third-party payment initiation at its own peril. The federal government and its advisory committee have noted time and time again that the scope of their open banking review is limited to data mobility, making third-party payment initiation […]
Want to promote responsible innovation? Start by promoting better questions
By: Alex Vronces, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada Remember when Paul Krugman wrote about the effect the Internet would have on the economy? “By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s,” he said in Time magazine in the late 1990s. Since then, […]
What pirates and privateers can tell us about payments
By: Alex Vronces, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada From the 16th through the 18th centuries, life on a merchant sail-ship was brutal. The work was dangerous, and so was the leisure. The ships were crammed, and the food as scarce as the privacy. Death from disease, such as scurvy, was common. Yet these weren’t the only […]
Public policy debate is a chorus that never ends
By: Alex Vronces, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada If you sat and listened to a public policy debate, but looked past the richness and nuance, focusing instead on the fundamentals, it would grate on your ears like a skipping record. It would even sound a little silly. The late Christopher Booker wrote The Seven Basic Plots, […]
Canadians lose when policy keeps paytechs small
By: Alex Vronces, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada All paytechs operating in Canada need the chance to get big. It’s a self-interested thing for me to say. It may even sound banal. But it needs to be said because bigness is underrated, and outdated policy stands in the way of many paytechs getting bigger. Consider the […]
Part 2: Fintechs Canada interview of Competition Commissioner, Matthew Boswell
By: Doug Kreviazuk, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada In late 2020, I had the opportunity to engage Canada’s Commissioner of Competition, Matthew Boswell in discussion to gain his perspective on the evolution of Canada’s payments system, and the importance of promoting a competitive marketplace for the benefit of Canadians and the Canadian economy. This is the […]
Part 1: Fintechs Canada interview of Competition Commissioner, Matthew Boswell
By: Doug Kreviazuk, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada In late 2020, I had the opportunity to engage Canada’s Commissioner of Competition, Matthew Boswell in discussion to gain his perspective on the evolution of Canada’s payments system and the importance of promoting a competitive marketplace for the benefit of Canadians and the Canadian economy. The second part […]
2021: Out with the old, in with the new, or more of the same?
By: Doug Kreviazuk, Executive Director, Fintechs Canada Clearly 2020 has been a tumultuous year for consumers, businesses, and the overall economy. Unfortunately, there have been many business casualties linked directly to the Covid-19 epidemic which translate into further issues and challenges for the average Canadian. As reported by Statistics Canada (November 2020), the largest impact […]