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Member Spotlight: Wealthica

In 2015, Martin Leclair and Simon Boulet launched Montreal-based Wealthica to “challenge the status quo of financial institutions and portfolio advisers.” The company continues that mission today by helping tens of thousands of investors see all their investments on a single dashboard.

How does it work?
Wealthica automatically imports a user’s data from more than 100 Canadian investing platforms using secure application programming interfaces, or APIs. Wealthica syncs portfolio information daily, after markets close. After only five years in business, the company is tracking about $5 billion in assets.

For families, Wealthica offers a tool where groups of individuals can work together to expand their wealth and track financial goals. The family dashboard and report card can be used to help assess the impact a certain event will have on a family’s investments, for example.

To protect consumers, Wealthica offers two factor authentication as well as email notification when logging in from a new location. The company also encrypts all financial information, and Sitelock, a global leader in website security, verifies Wealthica site security every day to protect users from spam, viruses, and scams.

The remarkable thing?
Wealthica’s basic platform is free to consumers (it also is ad-free) no matter how many accounts a user tracks. That makes the platform ideal for investors who are just starting to build their wealth, or who are unfamiliar with the market.

Unfortunately, as CEO Boulet explained in this 2017 interview, “Most of the financial institutions in Canada are closed and don’t offer a simple way to share your financial data with third party applications without sharing your credentials. For most of the institutions we have to ask the user for their credentials and retrieve their data through web scraping.”

A formal Open Finance system in Canada would make it easier for investors to connect and aggregate the data from all their investing accounts into Wealthica’s dashboard and give more control to the investor over their own financial data.

by paul paul No Comments

The Detrimental Impacts of SCA Reauthentication to Open Banking

The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA), on behalf of its members, is asking the European Commission and the European Banking Authority to urgently revisit the requirements on Secure Customer Authentication and 90-day Reauthentication, due to its extremely detrimental impact to Third Party Providers (TPPs).


Companies who have operated as TPPs pre-PSD2, as well as newer firms, have shared with us that they are contemplating returning money to shareholders because they cannot sustain their business under these circumstances.


PSD2’s political objective was to nurture those companies, improving competition, innovation and security in the EU payments market. However, currently the way 90-day Reauthentication and SCA work defeats the political objectives of PSD2, and fails to materially improve security to protect consumers.

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Member Spotlight: Mogo

Founded in 2003, Mogo is Vancouver-based financial technology company that offers a finance app that empowers consumers with simple solutions to help them get in control of their financial wellness.

Financial wellness continues to be the number one source of stress across all demographics and it is highest among millennials. At Mogo, users can sign up for a free MogoAccount in only three minutes. This account gets them access to six products: free credit score monitoring, identity fraud protection, digital spending account with Platinum Prepaid Visa® Card (the first product of its kind designed to help Canadians get better control over their spending while earning best-in-class cashback and having a positive impact on the environment), a digital mortgage experience, the MogoCrypto account (the first product within MogoWealth, which enables the buying and selling of bitcoin), and access to smart consumer credit products through MogoMoney.

Today the company serves over one million Canadians. The Digital Policy Institute has named the company one of Canada’s top 50 fintech companies.

Mogo’s goal is to make it easy for consumers to move away from bad money habits and begin adopting the habits that will actually help them achieve their money goals. This includes in-app educational content called “Money Class” that walks the user through the keys to each habit in a simple and engaging way. The redesigned mobile app was launched in December 2019 to give consumers a fuller view of their financial health. Through the app, consumers can:

  • Monitor and protect their credit score;
  • Control their spending;
  • Borrow responsibly; and
  • Save and invest.

When the redesigned app launched founder David Feller noted, “There is a financial health crisis in Canada and, while technology has improved our lives in many ways, unfortunately it has also made it easier than ever to overspend, leaving the majority of Canadians in debt and financially stressed as they find themselves further away from achieving their goal of financial freedom.”

Mogo’s efforts to help consumers get in control of their financial wellness are often hampered by the current banking environment in Canada and consumers’ perception and the reality of the difficulty in moving all or part of their financial needs from their current provider, typically a traditional financial institution, to a competitor, often a fintech. Consumers have come to expect a time-consuming process that creates a real and substantial roadblock for consumers to find the most well-suited financial products and services for their particular circumstances.

A well-architectured, consumer-directed finance system would provide the means to build a more confident, independent and financially free generation of Canadians who will jump at the opportunity for financial self-improvement, education and freedom.

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Member Spotlight: VoPay

VoPay: Democratizing Financial Services for Everyone

VoPay, whose mission is to digitize online bank account payments with speed, transparency and traceability, joined FDATA North America because it believes creating connections between financial institutions and global digital enterprises will “democratize financial services for everyone.”

If that sounds revolutionary, that’s because it is. What it means is that more people, including those previously absent from the traditional financial system, will be able to get loans, plan for retirement, or simply pay their bills online. Entrepreneurs and businesses will be better able to manage supply chains, or create new marketplaces.

VoPay already offers these options, but according to Philipp Postrehovsky, establishing open finance and open banking frameworks across North American will help ensure the company continues to offer payment solutions that provide the greatest level of value and security to its expanding ecosystem of next generation online payments.

While VoPay is committed to bringing financial technology solutions to more individuals and businesses, it also is dedicated to ensuring those solutions are secure. For example, in order to lessen the risk of fraud and identity theft, VoPay generates and shares a “token” between a consumer and a merchant. Because that token is unique, it is not usable for any other transaction. A traditional financial institution might share a consumer’s bank account information—numbers that, even when encrypted—are far less secure.

Information is important in a democracy, and another thing we—and policymakers and the media—love about VoPay is that the company works diligently to help individuals who wouldn’t know the difference between APIs and tokens if you offered them a million (Canadian!) dollars understand how the ecosystem works. Their blog and monthly newsletter are must reads for anyone struggling to understand the rapidly-changing fintech space and how it will be benefit consumers.

Check it out here. Understanding the prospect, and promise, of open banking and open finance will be a lot easier when you do.

by rebecca rebecca No Comments

FDATA North America to Highlight the Need for a Legal Consumer Data Right at CFPB Data Access Symposium

February 25, 2020, Washington, DC – FDATA North America has submitted remarks to the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (CFPB) in advance of tomorrow’s symposium on Consumer Access to Financial Records. FDATA North America’s Executive Director Steve Boms will provide remarks on the difficulty that consumers and small businesses experience in connecting their financial institution accounts with the third-party tools of their choice in the United States on both an initial and recurring basis, noting that “we believe the critical first step towards an open finance framework is the promulgation by policymakers of a consumer and small business financial data right.”

Image result for paperclip iconFDATA North America CFPB Data Access Symposium Testimony

Click here for more information on the symposium. 

by paul paul No Comments

Risks to open banking due to scope of AML legislation

The Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA), on behalf of its members, is asking the European Commission to amend the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive to remove account information services providers (AISPs) and payment initiation services providers (PISP) from its scope, as soon as the opportunity arises.


The inclusion of these services under European AML legislation was an unintended consequence of cross referencing between PSD2, CRD and AMLD4. It will very negatively impact the intended outcome of PSD2, which the Commission noted in its press release addressing frequently asked questions about PSD2 in January 2018, was to ‘help stimulate competition….[that] would then allow consumers to benefit from more and better choices between different types of payment services and service providers’.

Download Document Here

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FDATA North America Statement on Clearing House Purchase of Akoya

FDATA North America Statement on Clearing House Purchase of Akoya

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

February 20, 2020, Washington, DC: Steve Boms, executive director of the Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) North America released the following statement regarding The Clearing House’s acquisition of Akoya:

“The Clearing House is a banking association and payments company that is owned by the world’s largest commercial banks. Its purchase of Akoya, a data aggregation firm founded by one of America’s largest investment firms, represents a significant potential threat to competition and innovation in financial services technology, as well as to consumers’ ability to obtain personalized financial services from providers they’ve selected as best suited to help them. If the new entity is allowed to consolidate and control consumer financial data, it will potentially prevent other third parties from accessing that data even if individuals and small businesses permission that access, by giving their consent for their data to be shared.

“Consumers’ and small businesses’ rights to access, use and control their financial data are threatened by this merger. FDATA North America and its members are committed to implementing consumer-centric open finance technology and services that promote financial inclusion and that improve the financial well-being of American families and small businesses. We believe this purchase will not advance either goal and serves only to underscore the need for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to assert its authority under Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to promulgate a legal right for consumers and small businesses to control their financial data.” 

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 (the Alliance for Innovative Regulation), Betterment, Envestnet Yodlee, FGS, Flinks, Intuit, Kabbage, Lendified, Mogo, Morningstsar, M Science, MX, Petal, Plaid, Questrade, Quicken Loans, Petal, Plaid, The ID Co., TransUnion, Trustly, VoPay, Wealthica and others.

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FDATA anuncia Bruno Diniz como líder na América do Sul

São Paulo, 3 de fevereiro de 2020 – Bruno Diniz, um dos especialistas mais proeminentes em fintech do Brasil e cofundador da Spiralem, foi nomeado Líder da América do Sul pela (FDATA) Financial Data and Technology Association. Autor do recém-lançado livro “O Fenômeno Fintech”, da Alta Books, Bruno começa a exercer imediatamente a função, alocado em São Paulo. Atualmente, o FDATA opera em cinco continentes:  Europa, América do Norte, Ásia, Austrália e América do Sul e está iniciando um plano para desenvolver uma base na África.

O FDATA é uma associação global sem fins lucrativos para empresas de fintech que usam Open Finance em seus modelos de negócios. Seus membros fornecem aplicativos e serviços financeiros inovadores para auxiliar os clientes a tomarem melhores decisões e assumirem o controle total de suas vidas financeiras em todas as suas contas de pagamento: cartões de crédito, empréstimos, hipotecas, investimentos, pensões e seguros de varejo. A associação trabalha com governos, autoridades reguladoras e o setor de serviços financeiros em sua missão de preservar os direitos dos clientes de poder compartilhar seus dados financeiros com atores regulamentados de sua escolha.

Para Gavin Littlejohn, Presidente Global da FDATA, é o momento oportuno para a chegada do especialista à instituição. “Bruno Diniz é um pessoa importante para o FDATA e temos o prazer de anunciar seu novo papel como líder da operação na América do Sul. Bruno é, sem dúvida, uma das pessoas mais influentes que operam no setor de fintech na América do Sul e traz muitos conhecimentos, experiência e conexões para o cargo. Bruno é exatamente a pessoa certa para liderar nossos esforços na América do Sul neste momento crítico para a indústria”, sinaliza.

Quanto à presença no Brasil e na América Latina, o executivo destaca que o FDATA tem experiência no desenvolvimento de abordagens para direitos de dados de clientes, modelos de responsabilidade, estruturas regulatórias e no gerenciamento da implementação e monitoramento de entrega técnica, extraídos de uma ampla variedade de situações de mercado em todo o mundo. “Nossa presença na América do Sul ajuda a garantir que o mercado de fintech e os neobanks obtenham a qualidade da entrega, para que possam consumir com segurança dados financeiros e usá-los para oferecer melhores resultados para clientes e empresas na América do Sul”, afirma o Presidente Global da FDATA.

“Enquanto outros países da América do Sul estão progredindo em sua agenda de Open Finance, o Banco Central do Brasil desenvolveu uma excelente estrutura e esperamos continuar trabalhando com essa e outras instituições por meio do Bruno”, finaliza o executivo.

 

Para Bruno Diniz, felicidade e oportunidade se misturam neste momento. “Estou muito feliz em fazer parte de uma equipe tão brilhante e diversificada como a do FDATA. É importante propagar o objetivo da associação, de trazer maior poder para os consumidores no uso de seus dados financeiros. Este ano de 2020 é muito importante para o Open Finance no Brasil, já que o Banco Central está dando os primeiros passos para sua implementação. Acredito que o FDATA possa desempenhar um papel importante ao trazer sua experiência e rede global para auxiliar nesse processo. Estou animado para dar os próximos passos na jornada de Open Finance aqui na América do Sul”, comemora Diniz.

A nomeação de Diniz segue as notícias recentes do FDATA, que anunciou a renomada especialista em Fintech, Ghela Boskovich, como líder da operação do FDATA na Europa.

Sobre o FDATA

A FDATA (Financial Data and Technology Association) é uma associação global sem fins lucrativos para empresas de fintech que usam Open Finance em seus modelos de negócios. Seus membros fornecem aplicativos e serviços financeiros inovadores para auxiliar os clientes a tomarem melhores decisões e assumirem o controle total de suas vidas financeiras em todas as suas contas de pagamento: cartões de crédito, empréstimos, hipotecas, investimentos, pensões e seguros de varejo. Procuramos trabalhar com o governo, as autoridades reguladoras e o setor de serviços financeiros em nossa missão de consagrar os direitos dos clientes de poderem compartilhar seus dados financeiros com atores regulados de sua escolha.

Sobre Bruno Diniz 

Bruno Diniz é considerado uma das pessoas mais influentes da fintech no Brasil, sendo responsável pelos primeiros eventos sobre esse assunto no país. Ele é co-fundador da Spiralem (empresa de consultoria focada em inovação para o mercado financeiro), realizando projetos para grandes instituições financeiras e órgãos governamentais estrangeiros nos últimos 5 anos. Desde 2016, atua como Head de Fintech em nome da Associação Brasileira de Startups (ABStartups), lidando recorrentemente com os reguladores locais em assuntos como a implementação de Sandboxes Regulatórios. Bruno também ensina fintech e novas soluções financeiras na FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas) e no curso de MBA da Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Em janeiro de 2020, Diniz lançou seu livro “O Fenômeno Fintech”, que já é um best-seller na categoria bancária na Amazon Brasil.

Uma imagem de Bruno Diniz pode ser baixada aqui.

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