Canadian Fintech: Someone Bought a Bank 🏦

Good morning! Welcome back to the Canadian Fintech Newsletter, an industry roundup for founders, operators and investors.

Every Monday we break down the hottest topics in the industry in under 3 minutes.

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💰 Funding

• Fiscal.ai, a Toronto based equities research platform raised $10m led by Portage.

  • The Bloomberg competitor recently rebranded from FinChat and crossed 350k users.

🤝 M&A

• Pesa, a Toronto based remittance platform acquired Authoripay Emony, a UK based issuer / acquirer.

  • Pesa has processed over $380m in transaction volume.

• Conexus, Cornerstone, and Synergy Credit Union finalized their merger.

  • The three Saskatchewan credit unions will have $15b in AUM, 200k members and 57 branches.

• Burgundy Asset Management, a wealth management firm with $27b in AUM is being acquired by BMO for $625m.

• Bitcoin Treasury Corporation (BTCT), an Alberta based bitcoin investment and lending company is going public in a reverse takeover.

• Anthony Lacavera’s acquisition of Wealth One Bank was approved by the federal government.

  • Wealth One is a 10 year old schedule 1 Canadian bank, which caters to Chinese-Canadian clients. The bank is small ($516m in assets), unprofitable, and has been under regulatory scrutiny for AML violations and alleged connections between its founders and the Chinese government.

  • Lacavera wants to convert it into a challenger brand, similar to what he did with his previous company Freedom Mobile (fka Wind Mobile) in the telecom market.

  • The irony here is that Wind Mobile, was also the target of regulatory scrutiny for running afoul of Canada’s ownership rules. Their largest investorwas an Egyptian billionaire.

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🚀 Product

• Huumans, a free community group for small business owners get advice on budgeting and benchmarking launched.

  • The company was founded by the team behind Wagepoint, a Canadian payroll software.

• WesternUnion is using Montreal based Zūm Rails to let their Canadians users fund international transfers via Interac e-Transfer.

• Forbes, the publisher, is white labelling Homewise to broker mortgages in Canada.

  • Homewise does the same for the Canadian free credit score apps Credit Karma, Borrowell, and ClearScore.

• Circle K, a Canadian gas station chain, is launching a fuel card for fleet drivers powered by Filip, a Calgary based fintech.

  • Last year Circle K partnered with iFinance to offer unsecured consumer loans.

• ZayZoon, a Calgary based earned-wage-access platform is expanding beyond early wage payouts by launching employer perks like tax support, insurance products & discounts on groceries.

⚖️ Policy

• The FCAC, Canada’s open banking regulator reaffirmed their commitment to launching it by 2026, but did not share an updated timeline on the rollout.

  • The Liberals made (technically remade) the commitment in the Fall Economic Statement last year. But that was prior to the federal election.

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Have a great week! See ya 👋

-Tal Schwartz