COVID-19 Archives - Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA)

August 4, 2021by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America Applauds Release of Final Report of Canadian Advisory Committee on Open Banking

Contact: Kerrie Rushton, (202) 365-6338, [email protected]

August 4, 2021, Washington, DC –The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) of North America today issued a statement following Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s release of the report customer-directed finance (CDF) by the Advisory Committee on Open Banking. Executive Director Steve Boms said:

“This report is an important milestone in Canada’s move toward customer-directed finance, and in achieving a customer-centric, 21st century financial services marketplace that enhances financial access and boosts competition. Major markets around the world have implemented or are designing open finance regimes that give families and small businesses more control over their financial lives. The fintech community has worked tirelessly with policymakers over the last several years to ensure that Canadians are not left behind. We are grateful to Minister Freeland for finally moving this file forward.

“As we look forward to next steps of a Canadian CDF system, we urge policymakers to move quickly to begin implementation, and to ensure the framework allows for payment initiation and money movement use cases. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how important these services are to families and small businesses. The fintech community has supported Canadians during this crisis, offering seamless products that provide access to capital, payment and accounting services, and countless other applications. Payment initiation and money movement must be accounted for in this new regime.”

Members include air (Alliance for Innovative Regulation), APImetrics, Basis Theory, Betterment, BillGO, Codat, Direct ID, Envestnet Yodlee, EQ Bank, Experian, Fiserv, Flinks, Interac, Intuit, Inverite, Kabbage, Mogo, Morningstsar, M Science, MX, Petal, Plaid, Questrade, Quicken Loans, SaltEdge, Trustly, ValidiFI, VoPay, Wealthica, Xero, and others.

May 7, 2021by rebecca rebecca No Comments

Member Spotlight: BillGO

Founded in 2015, BillGO is driven by the core belief that everyone deserves access to a healthy financial future. BillGO helps facilitate this access by providing consumers, billers, fintechs and financial institutions with a faster, smarter, more secure way to pay and manage bills and subscriptions.

So how can bill payment technology improve financial wellbeing?

Consider this: even though most consumers trust financial institutions (FIs) to manage their money, only 22 percent of them use the bill pay technology their FIs provide. Seventy-six percent, meanwhile, pay their online bills directly to biller websites, which is both a cumbersome and risky method of managing bills.

When asked why they reject FI-offered bill pay technology, many consumers say their FI bill pay technology is outmoded. It is difficult to use, offers little visibility and fails to provide real-world bill payment confirmation. This lack of confirmations has real-world results – namely late fees. A 2019 study revealed late credit card payments alone cost consumers up to $3 billion a year.

By offering a modernized, real-time bill pay solution, BillGO not only helps consumers avoid late payments and fees by sending due date reminders but also provides consumers with a single, consolidated tool to manage bills and payments, eliminating the need to log into multiple biller sites each month to manage their financial obligations.

BillGO’s mission doesn’t stop there. In 2020, BillGO launched its Bill Pay Relief Hub, a resource originally conceived to help consumers impacted by bills brought on by COVID-19. Since then, the Hub’s mission has expanded, providing help to consumers facing an array of economic setbacks. The Hub now connects consumers to more than 300 businesses and FIs offering payment relief. In 2020, Banking Tech Awards named the Hub one of 2020’s Best COVID Responses by a Fintech.

Speaking of awards, Fortune recently named BillGO one of the “Best Places To Work” in the financial services industry. And last March, Forbes named BillGO one of “America’s Best Startup Employers” because of its reputation as an employer, its high levels of employee satisfaction, and its potential for growth.

BillGO’s award-winning real-time bill management and payments platform transforms the dreaded necessity of managing and paying bills into an opportunity for financial well-being. The company currently serves more than 32 million consumers, 8,000 FIs and nurtures relationships with more than 170,000 billers and suppliers nationwide and is headquartered in Colorado, with offices in Ohio and Washington state, employing more than 250 people.

April 24, 2020by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America and Canadian Lenders Association Call for Fintech Participation in Canada’s COVID-19 Response

FDATA North America and Canadian Lenders Association Call for Fintech Participation in Canada’s COVID-19 Response

Contact for FDATA North America: Kerrie Rushton, (202) 365-6338, [email protected]
ontact for CLA: Tal Schwartz, (514) 244-2008, [email protected]

April 24, 2020, Washington, DC and Toronto -The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) North America today announced its endorsement of the Canadian Lenders Association (CLA) proposal to include financial technology (fintech) participation in Canada’s COVID-19-related financial relief programs for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While Canada’s Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP) should provide emergency loans over the next three months to up to 100,000 Canadian SMEs, FDATA North America and CLA jointly assert that many small enterprises will not be well served by the program as currently outlined.

Small businesses that could be left out include those that:

Do not have existing relationships with traditional financial institutions who are overseeing the CEBA program;
Have legitimate credit needs in excess of the $40,000 limit of the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) program;
Will not qualify for CEBA because their payroll is below $20,000 or in excess of $1.5 million;
Will not qualify because workers/owners are paid through dividends rather than payroll; or,
Will not qualify because key workers are contractors rather than employees on payroll.

The CLA proposal that FDATA North America has endorsed proposes to establish a special purpose funding vehicle through the Business Development Bank of Canada from which Canadian SMEs will access a target of $2 billion of funds within 90-120 days through CLA qualified fintech lenders. The program will provide necessary liquidity to small businesses that would not be able to access the BCAP through traditional financial institutions.

“The fintech community in Canada stands ready to assist the many SMEs that would be excluded from the BCAP,” said FDATA North America Executive Director Steve Boms. “Many have seen up to a 100 percent drop in their revenues which will continue for several months or more and face the prospect of a protracted economic recovery. While their long-term business prospects may remain sound, they need to survive through the short term. As some of the smallest SMEs in Canada do not have existing relationships with traditional financial institutions, it is imperative that fintech providers be authorized to participate in the BCAP.”

“Canadian fintechs have existing online systems and capabilities which allow them to efficiently originate, underwrite, and deploy BCAP loans,” said CLA’s President, Gary Schwartz. “Fintech lenders can provide significant operational support and leverage to the Business Development Bank of Canada and traditional lenders in deploying capital through their network of small business clients and will extend the reach of the existing BCAP.”

Other countries, including the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, have worked to include fintech offerings in their COVID-19-related small business loan programs. The U.S. Small Business Administration, for example, has in the past several days extended approvals to various non-bank lenders, including FDATA North America members, and is expected to approve further fintech applicants in the days ahead.

ABOUT FDATA NORTH AMERICA
FDATA was heavily involved in the UK Open Banking Working Group in 2015. In 2016, the working group’s output was published by Her Majesty’s Treasury as the Open Banking Standard. FDATA North America was founded in early 2018. Its members collectively provide tens of millions of consumers in Canada, the United States and Mexico with aggregation-based tools to better manage their finances. Existing FDATA North America members include: air (Alliance for Innovative Regulation), Betterment, Direct ID, Envestnet Yodlee, Fintech Growth Syndicate, Flinks, Intuit, Kabbage, Mogo, Morningstsar, M Science, MX, Petal, Plaid, Questrade, Quicken Loans, TransUnion, Trustly, VoPay, Wealthica and others.

ABOUT THE CANADIAN LENDERS ASSOCIATION
The Canadian Lenders Association’s mission is to provide its members the tools to innovate and grow and to foster safe and ethical lending practices. The CLA supports the growth of companies that are in the business of lending, or providing other means of credit, to small business and individuals by non-conventional or innovative means.