Atlantic Fintech and Venn Innovation welcome Sterling Brokers, a Canadian fintech unicorn in employee benefits and insurance, as its newest Innovation Partner. This partnership will bring more than employee benefits to founders and companies in Atlantic Canada – it will open access to Sterling Brokers’ network of experts, executives, and investors to help Atlantic Fintech companies grow into markets across Canada and across the globe.

We had some great learnings from Mark Bishopp, former SVP - Head of Embedded Payments/Finance & Partnerships at Fortis, on our webinar on March 28th.

A few highlights:

The fintech ecosystem continues to grow in Atlantic Canada. As market dynamics like open banking, embedded finance and further digitalization of the financial industry and financial processes continue to press forward, there are a growing number of companies in Atlantic Canada poised to have significant impact and opportunity.

Venn Innovation, through its Atlantic Fintech initiative, will lead an in-person, pan-Atlantic mission to Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas taking place March 3-6, 2024. We are seeking applications from Atlantic Canadian companies for one of the available spots. The application form can be found here. Applications are open until January 10, 2024.

With a delegation of 8 companies from across Atlantic Canada attending Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas next week, the region will be well represented. Unique in its model, the Fintech Meetup Conference will use technology to facilitate over 30,000 meetings during the event for the benefit of attendees such as Bloqs4Good, Capfi, Duntragon, Mesh Diversity, PayTic, Profitual, SnapB2B, and StockCalc.

Growing the fintech ecosystem across Atlantic Canada – Atlantic Fintech welcomes e6, and its CFO expertise, to its Executive Membership. Atlantic Canadian technology companies continue to grow from outside capital and organic growth: as these firms grow, having the right strategic financial expertise at the table for planning and managing growth is vital.

To support the growth of the fintech sector across Atlantic Canada, Atlantic Fintech and Fintech Cadence announce today that fintech companies across the region can access the complete range of training and services provided to startups through the Fintech Hub platform. This collaboration brings together two key organizations that are working on the development of the fintech ecosystem focusing on ensuring a healthy fintech pipeline.

Atlantic Canada is home to 140 fintech companies, as illustrated in the Atlantic Fintech Report released by Atlantic Fintech, in partnership with Fathom4sight, a leading Canadian provider of fintech industry knowledge and foresights. 

Atlantic Canada will be well represented at Money2020 in Las Vegas, one of the most significant conferences for the global fintech industry. Eight companies from across the region will attend the conference to meet potential partners, investors, and customers. The firms include Dunbridge Financial, Gray Wolf Analytics, OliverPOS, PayTic, SONA, SnapB2B, The Identity Score, and Troj.ai

As a second-year student at Dalhousie University, I am an intern supporting marketing and communications at Venn Innovation, the not-for-profit supporting innovation-based economic development in New Brunswick. Venn powers Atlantic FinTech, and during my tenure here, I got to work very closely with Alicia Roisman Ismach, the Head of Atlantic FinTech, and other fintech innovators and entrepreneurs in the region.

The relationship between Europe and Atlantic Canada dates back hundreds of years, with many strong linkages of a geopolitical, business and personal nature. As a region, Atlantic Canada has a long, storied history of financial services and innovation. Both the Bank of Nova Scotia and The Royal Bank of Canada started in the region, collectively representing $31.3B CAD / €21.2B EUR and $47.1B CAD / €31.97B EUR in revenues in 2020, respectively.

Recently, I had a discussion with a friend about what I do for Atlantic Fintech and what fintech means. As I started answering, I realized I was trying to package something as versatile and powerful as fintech into a few sentences, while trying not to limit it to a few check boxes.

As we collectively adapt to the new normal post the pandemic, we see surprising outcomes such as increased opportunities for remote investments. Earlier, venture capital (VC) investors in the technology sector would reject companies that were headquartered far from their physical location. Now, there is a surge in the number of investors who are open to engaging with entrepreneurs they have never met before, and to closing fully remote deals. 

The rising cost of fighting cybercrime in financial institutions has revealed a big gap that Atlantic Canadian fintech innovators can fill with their rich financial experience and tech expertise.

As our economy is starting to shift from response to recovery mode post the pandemic, fintech innovators and companies have started leading the charge. Every company, even those that have nothing to do with financial services, now see tremendous potential in the digital economy. Fintech is no longer an industry by itself. It is evolving into the backbone of all other industries, like cybersecurity and cloud computing.