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Look for personalization, redemption options and “points as currency” By Len Covello The loyalty industry in Canada has left brands and consumers wanting more. The issue is that many of today’s loyalty programs run on unsophisticated technologies with little segmentation capabilities and zero personalization features. When it comes to loyalty …

By Stacy Gorkoff The Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” When it comes to guaranteeing that every payment transaction completes as expected, this statement could not be more accurate. For retail banks, independent ATM deployers (IADs) and payment processors, transactions are …

By Neil Butters The payments industry has already made significant progress helping Canadians adopt and embrace new technologies, such as contactless and digital payments. Now it’s time to apply what we’ve learned to the development of a truly digital ID that will help people unlock the full potential of the …

By Tracey Black Payments modernization around the world continues to progress, addressing consumer and business needs for greater speed, flexibility and security. In its sixth annual Flavors of Fast report, FIS identified 54 countries with active real-time payment programs, up from 40 in 2018. Here in Canada we are making …

By Molly Shea The cash versus cashless debate has been well-argued for years now, with many people putting their eggs in one basket or the other: either making the case for a completely cashless society or arguing why physical currency is still valuable. While you probably carry less cash than …

By David Grindal Our traditional world of stable payment acceptance mechanisms is long gone. Payments used to just mean either cash and cards for a merchant or automated clearing house (ACH) and wire transfers and larger-amount cheques for a business, government or institution. The only person-to-person (P2P) payments that were …

By Anthony Loiacono All businesses are not created equal and neither are their accounting needs. There is no one-size-fits-all way to structure an accounts department. However, there may be an easier way to handle certain accounting tasks, such as invoicing, which can be automated to reduce the amounts of staff-hours …

By Andrew McCormack Since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009, cryptocurrencies have had their share of media frenzy. Even Facebook has gotten in on the action, recently unveiling its Libra digital coin. But Bitcoin was the first, it’s the biggest and with the help of new players on the market, …

By Brendan Read Open banking promises to provide Canadian consumers and businesses with the ability to control the use of their banking data and access digital banking tools or financial technology (FinTech) services, according to Senator Colin Deacon. He is a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade …

By Peter Misek Earlier this year, FinTech and artificial intelligence (AI) startups across Canada presented their innovative solutions for the payments industry at the Visa-sponsored Future of Payments Pitch Battle, as part of the Canadian Fintech Summit (www.fintechsummit.ca). Amongst 14 startups across a wide range of sectors, one company stood …