Weekly FinTech & Financial News
Subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter
✉️
Subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter ✉️
August 31-September 4, 2026
Top FinTech Updates this Week
💰 Landjourney, a Montréal and Colorado-based rebranded to Sweet Technologies and closed $7.4M USD ($10.3M CAD) to expand the reach of its agriculture-focused lending software
💰 Beacon closes oversubscribed $20M to expand its financial services footprint across Canada and India
🚀 Nearly two dozen AI hyperscalers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, agreed to the federal government’s new framework which asks, but does not compel companies to follow responsible development guidelines for building data centres in Canada
🚀 Federal government is launching 'Digital Transformation Canada' a new federal organization that promises to make use of digital technologies to improve Canadians' access and experience with government services and appointed Patrick Pichette as Digital Transformation Canada's new CEO
🚀 Coinbase launches Derivative Contracts in Canada enabling eligible Canadian traders for the first time, access regulated derivatives contracts on Coinbase offered through Coinbase Financial Markets (CFM)
🌟 The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) published a joint notice stating that contracts relating to sports and entertainment events should not be regulated as securities or derivatives, and that CIRO won’t allow its members to offer these types of contracts
Top Financial Institutions Updates this Week
🚀 RBC launched its RBC Community Solar Program, a new national initiative that can help community organizations launch solar energy projects
🚀 Twenty-one leading international financial institutions from North America including Scotiabank and TD Bank Group, Europe, East Asia, Middle East and Africa have committed to establish a new enterprise to support the issuance of a stablecoin solution in H2 2026
💼 Laurentian Bank of Canada reveals that the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization and the relevant securities regulatory authorities have approved the previously announced acquisition by Fairstone Bank of Canada and National Bank of Canada
🌟 TD successfully moved real USD funds between two domestic U.S. entities for the first time using the Project Agorá platform
-
The technical deployment specifically utilizes Square for Restaurants Plus to manage day-to-day shop operations and front-of-house activities. This is integrated with Square Loyalty and Square Marketing, allowing the business to manage customer relationships and retention programs from the same interface used for transactions. Additionally, Square Online has been introduced at a selection of sites to support click-and-collect ordering, providing a digital sales channel that feeds directly into the main point-of-sale system. Previously, Parsons Bakery had been running entirely separate systems for point of sale, payments, loyalty, and online ordering. The move to Square was driven by the need for a coordinated management system that could scale across its multi-site structure while reducing the administrative burden on staff. | Merchant’s Eye
The move follows a period where the brand used a different provider as its operations expanded. Now operating across Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Arizona, and Texas, Cascadia’s footprint includes 17 corporate restaurants, various franchise locations, food trucks, and event catering units. By consolidating its technology in 2026, the brand has deployed Square for Restaurants and the Square Franchise Suite across all formats. The implementation includes a comprehensive hardware stack featuring Square Register and Square Stand for counter service, Square Handheld for patio operations and line-busting, and Square KDS for kitchen management. For its mobile and catering units, the brand relies on Square’s offline capabilities to maintain reliability in environments without stable connectivity. The Square Franchise Suite allows corporate leadership to manage centralized reporting and menu orchestration across all sites, while ensuring each franchisee maintains an independent Square account. The ecosystem also integrates guest engagement tools such as Square Loyalty, Square Gift Cards, and Square Marketing, alongside third-party delivery integrations with Uber Eats and Postmates. | Merchant’s Eye
The oversubscribed round follows a seven-day period in which Beacon doubled its user base and reached the top of the App Store with C$11,000 in advertising spend. The capital will support new product launches, continued customer growth and the development of integrated financial services for people managing money between the two countries. | LinkedIn
-
Coinbase is the first major crypto native platform to offer direct native crypto futures in Canada. These capital-efficient perpetual and dated contracts allow sophisticated investors to trade, speculate, and hedge on a platform they already trust. The launch of derivatives contracts on Coinbase offers eligible Canadian investors access to highly liquid and regulated contracts including: 23 perpetual and dated futures such as Bitcoin, ETH and SOL; Five commodity futures including Gold, Silver and Oil; And index futures like COIN50. As digital assets become increasingly integrated into the Canadian financial landscape, this expansion gives sophisticated traders the opportunity to leverage risk-management tools that were previously only available to major financial institutions. | Coinbase
-
The test involved a tokenized payment between TD New York Branch and TD Bank, N.A., with Bank of New York (BNY) serving as the clearing bank/intermediary. Conducted as part of Project Agorá’s real-value testing, the transaction demonstrated the ability to issue tokenized money and enable instant, atomic settlement between TD entities on the Agorá platform. TD’s participation highlights its focus on practical innovation and supports the exploration of faster, more transparent and efficient wholesale cross-border payments while maintaining the safety and integrity of the existing banking system. | TD
This is Canada’s first bank note to feature His Majesty’s portrait and the first time in more than 70 years that a new monarch has appeared on the $20 denomination. The new note will gradually enter circulation in late February 2027. The note’s advanced and dynamic security features are combined with images that reflect Canada’s beauty and its history. The portrait of his Majesty is surrounded by a floral and leafy tapestry inspired by the King’s lifetime dedication to the environment. The back of the note retains the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France as a tribute to Canada’s contributions and sacrifices in military conflicts throughout its history. Provincial and territorial floral emblems representing the 13 provinces and territories appear on the front of the note. A circular window, visible from both sides of the note, features plants that are culturally significant to Indigenous Peoples in Canada. The Bank’s Indigenous Advisory Circle collaborated on creating the design of this window. The Bank also consulted with Canadians, government partners and a range of stakeholders including accessibility groups and organizations connected to the memorial at Vimy Ridge. Their input was instrumental in the development of the new $20 note. | Bank of Canada
The continuing conflict in the Middle East is keeping energy prices high. As well, new US tariffs and Canadian counter-measures have been announced following the breakdown of trade talks between Canada and the United States. Both situations remain fluid. In the United States, economic growth continues to be solid, driven by consumer spending and AI-related investment. Growth in the euro area was stronger than expected in the second quarter, while China’s economy slowed. Overall, the global economy has shown resilience in the face of geopolitical headwinds, with growth broadly consistent with the July Monetary Policy Report (MPR) projection. With still-high oil prices and elevated margins for refined energy products, inflation in most countries remains high. Canadian economic activity strengthened in the second quarter, with GDP up by 3.3%, following very weak growth in the first quarter. While some of the recent strength reflected temporary factors, the pick-up in activity was broad-based. Consumption showed solid gains. Following several weak quarters, there was some rebound in housing activity. Exports and business investment were up sharply. Labour market conditions have improved in recent months, with the unemployment rate edging down to 6.4% in July. Still, demand for labour remains subdued and indicators point to continued excess supply in the economy. | Bank of Canada
He will report directly to Rob Wesseling, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and join the executive leadership team. A respected leader with more than 20 years of experience at Co-operators, Bran most recently served as Vice-President, Claims, where he led a major transformation that combined people-centric claims service with expanded digital capabilities and advanced use of AI to enhance both client experience and operational performance. He has held leadership roles across Technology, Finance, Actuarial, Underwriting, Digital, and Claims throughout his career at Co-operators. As CIO, Craig will lead the organization’s Technology function, driving the strategy, development and delivery of technology solutions that enable employees, improve client experiences and position Co-operators for continued growth. | Co-operators
Fairstone Bank of Canada to acquire of all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Laurentian Bank and National Bank of Canada to acquire all of Laurentian Bank’s retail and SME banking portfolios. These regulatory approvals conclude the key regulatory approval process required to proceed with the closing of the Transactions. The federal Minister of Finance has previously approved the Acquisition Transaction, and the Transactions have also received the necessary approvals from the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. The Competition Act approval condition to closing for both Transactions has been satisfied, provided that there is no change in circumstances relating to the Competition Bureau. Laurentian Bank, Fairstone Bank, and NBC will work closely together to ensure a smooth transition for customers. Laurentian Bank’s retail and SME customers whose products and services will migrate to NBC following closing of the Retail/SME Transaction will receive clear communications outlining what the migration means for their products and services. | National Bank of Canada
The following appointments are effective September 4, 2026: Vlad Shpilsky is appointed Group Head, Global Technology and Solutions (GTS) and will continue to lead the GTS organization, advancing TD's technology and digital leadership across the Bank. Renu Gupta is appointed Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and will join the Senior Executive Team. Paul Whitehead is appointed Senior Executive Vice President, Global Corporate Services and will join the Senior Executive Team. With these changes, Taylan Turan, Group Head, Chief Operating Officer, will leave TD. Since joining the Bank, Turan has helped advance and accelerate TD's transformation agenda, strengthening how we operate, extending our AI leadership, and building capabilities that will support future growth. | TD
As the Official Bank of the NSL and Presenting Sponsor of NSL broadcasts across all platforms, BMO will continue to play a leading role in growing the visibility and reach of Canada's first professional women's soccer league from coast to coast. Since the league's inception, BMO and the NSL have worked together to help grow the game, create opportunities for athletes and inspire the next generation of soccer players across Canada. Through this renewed partnership, the organizations will expand efforts to develop meaningful legacy programs that strengthen pathways to professional soccer, support the development of girls and women in sport and help retain Canadian talent. The renewed partnership will also continue to support opportunities beyond the field of play. Through programs like BMO Next Gen, BMO and the NSL are helping create pathways for the next generation of leaders in sport. Each year, one aspiring female sports media student is selected through a nationwide recruitment process to receive mentorship and exclusive behind-the-scenes access to NSL Media Day and the NSL Championship Final. The program is designed to help develop future leaders in sports media and broadcasting while increasing representation across the industry. | BMO
RBC's Community Solar Program can help make solar energy projects more affordable for local organizations across Canada. Through a 10-year agreement, RBC buys renewable energy credits (RECs) from participating organizations creating an additional revenue stream while helping to lower their operational costs. The program is a creative solution to help RBC reduce its own operational emissions while supporting community-led solar energy development and wider grid decarbonization. This program debuts with two community organizations described below. BUILD, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is an Indigenous social enterprise non-profit contractor and a training program for people who face barriers to employment. The organization employs local individuals, aims to cut crime, decreases employment and income assistance (EIA) rates and trains the next generation of local workers for long-term careers in the trades. Holland College, Prince Edward Island's provincial community college, has also signed on with the program. The project includes two solar installations at the College's Prince of Wales Campus in Charlottetown and Atlantic Police Academy in Summerside. | RBC
The new company, to be named in due course, intends to operate globally, initially offering a USD-denominated stablecoin, with EUR and other G7 currencies planned over time. Drawing on the expertise of 21 participating financial institutions, the initiative aims to provide a safe, robust and trusted digital money solution with bank-grade compliance, strong governance and institutional risk management. The stablecoin will target wholesale, institutional and retail use cases, including cross-border payments and digital asset settlements, with a planned launch in H1 2027. The initiative builds on the October 2025 announcement by an initial group of ten banks and intends to comply with the GENIUS Act and MiCA, as applicable. | Scotiabank
Scotiabank appointed Ralph Hamers to its Board of Directors, effective immediately
Mr. Hamers brings extensive global banking, technology, and transformation experience to the Board, having served as Group Chief Executive Officer of UBS Group AG from 2020 to 2023 and Chief Executive Officer of ING Group from 2013 to 2020. Over the course of his career, he has held senior leadership roles across retail, commercial, and wholesale banking, with deep experience leading large-scale digital transformation and client-focused modernization across global financial institutions. Mr. Hamers spent nearly three decades at ING, joining the bank in 1991 and serving in senior roles across Europe before being appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2013. During his tenure, ING advanced its digital banking capabilities and strengthened its position as a leading customer-focused financial institution. He subsequently joined UBS in 2020, where he served as Group Chief Executive Officer, launching a strategy to drive better alignment across the Bank and playing an instrumental role in the acquisition of Credit Suisse. He is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Banking Circle Group, a next-generation financial technology platform for global commerce. He is also Chairman of the Board of Your.World B.V., a European online services company. | Scotiabank
-
The round was led by GreatPoint Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Next Frontier Ventures, and E12 Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its business reach, as well as its development efforts. They’re hiring across research, engineering, and operations. Mundo AI develops data, evaluations, and applied research to advance perceptual intelligence across audio, video, and emerging modalities. Today, its datasets and evaluations are used by AI labs to build the next generation of multimodal systems. From natural speech-to-speech interactions and fine-grained video understanding to emerging modalities that don’t yet have established learning methods, the company’s data helps researchers build, measure, and improve perceptual intelligence. | FinSMEs
Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles are intended to support the domestic data centre buildout the federal government is pursuing as part of its AI strategy, while addressing public concerns about higher water use, electricity bills, and other local impacts. The framework includes five expectations: Data centre development should create lasting local benefits. Solomon said this can include jobs, skills training, research partnerships, and access to compute; Data centres should not shift electricity costs to Canadians. This means data centre operators must pay for the costs they create, protect grid reliability, and, where required, contribute to new supply; Data centres should minimize water use and environmental impacts. Operators must protect local fresh water, and priority should be given to efficient projects, like those with closed-loop cooling systems or waste heat recovery; Data centre developers should be transparent about local impacts. Solomon said local approval processes must be respected, and that local residents should receive independently verifiable information about noise, emissions, and power and water use; Data centre developments should bring strategic value to Canada. Projects must create clear and lasting benefits to Canada, including investment, supply chain participation, and compute capacity. The framework has secured 23 signatories, including the largest AI companies and hyperscalers building data centres in Canada. This includes Amazon Web Services, Bell, Telus, OVHCloud, Hypertec, ThinkOn, and Beacon Data Centres. Other big tech companies that agreed included Canada’s leading LLM developer, Cohere, as well as Microsoft and Meta. Meta is already planning to build Canada’s largest data centre development in Alberta. | BetaKit
Superconductors are materials that are capable of conducting electricity without any resistance or energy loss, making them far more efficient than normal conductors. Meissner aims to develop and sell new, optimized superconductors that can operate at significantly higher temperatures for specialized uses. Meissner’s investors include BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund and several big-name angels, including Canadian tech veterans like Andrew Talpash, Anthony Lacavera, Christian Weedbrook, Daniel Debow, Dennis Bennie, Eliot Pence, Greg Twinney, and Michael and Richard Hyatt. | BetaKit
-
It was led by Montréal’s Diagram, San Francisco-based Builders VC, and Illinois’ Cooperative Ventures. The all-primary capital round, which consisted of a combination of equity funding and simple agreements for future equity, closed during the second quarter. Sweet plans to use it to expand the reach of its flagship FinTech platform, SweetAg, which aims to modernize how other financial institutions originate and service loans to farmers and agribusinesses using AI. Sweet co-founder and CPO Jeremie Bedard told BetaKit over email that the startup also intends to start serving firms doing other forms of commercial lending beyond agriculture. | BetaKit
-
In Canada, regulated contract dealers (currently Wealthsimple and Interactive Brokers) under CIRO can offer event contracts related to economic indicators, climate-related events, and financial markets.CSA and CIRO said in their joint release that other types of event contracts are still being assessed. The statement from regulators comes shortly after Wealthsimple, which launched a prediction markets app this summer, argued in a whitepaper that dividing up the regulatory oversight of derivatives instruments by subject matter is the “wrong approach” for regulators. For instance, Wealthsimple’s paper said, putting sports outcomes under gaming regulation while financial outcomes are treated as securities would be “unworkable.” | BetaKit
-
To reach that goal, the firm is now navigating the remaining application processes with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve, alongside the final steps required for full OCC authorization. Once these permissions are finalized, the company intends to provide a comprehensive suite of retail banking services directly to U.S. customers. The proposed product lineup includes traditional offerings such as consumer loans, credit cards, and FDIC-insured deposit accounts. Notably, the bank will also provide access to stablecoins and cryptocurrencies, aiming to replicate the "super-app" experience it offers in other jurisdictions. This U.S. push is part of a broader global strategy that saw Revolut obtain banking licenses in the United Kingdom, France, and Australia during 2026. The company is also active in the Middle East with a UAE payments license and is progressing a bank license application in South Africa. Across the Americas, the firm recently launched its Mexican Bank and is advancing regulatory efforts in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina. Currently serving over 80 million customers, the organization remains on track to reach the 100 million user milestone by the middle of 2027. | Fintech Finance News
-
The platform allows U.S. financial institutions to offer core banking services—such as opening accounts and moving money—directly within the vertical software or fintech products their corporate customers use for daily operations. By integrating these capabilities, banks can provide a native experience that eliminates the need for clients to toggle between their business management software and a separate banking portal. The technical delivery of the platform is flexible, offering banks the choice of using APIs, SDKs, embeddable widgets, or fully white-labeled applications. This modularity is intended to accommodate the varying technical preferences of software partners. A key differentiator of this platform is the regulatory and structural positioning: because the accounts reside on the bank's own balance sheet rather than a third-party virtual ledger, the bank maintains full regulatory control and customer ownership. This structure is designed to provide simpler compliance and a cleaner regulatory position compared to traditional middleware-led models. Under this model, the bank manages the financial infrastructure and compliance, the software partner manages the user experience, and FIS provides the underlying technology. This setup is designed to help banks capture the full money lifecycle, from initial deposits to capital deployment, by meeting customers in the digital environments where they already conduct business. The platform aims to keep banks central to the shift toward embedded finance by extending their reach across the deposits they hold and the payments they facilitate. | Fintech Finance News
-
The solution is designed to help financial institutions identify fraudulent activity in real-time without the lengthy model development periods typically required for individual bank data. By utilizing advanced AI and transfer learning, the system provides immediate access to global risk insights from day one of deployment. The tool is specifically aimed at the European market, where fraudulent credit transfers reached a cost of €2.5 billion in 2024. Banks opting into the network-level intelligence sharing can access signals regarding emerging scam hotspots and coordinated fraud activity that are often invisible to single institutions. This collaborative approach is intended to help the wider ecosystem respond faster to new threats as they emerge across different payment types. | Fintech Finance News
-
The findings highlight a fundamental challenge for families: kids can't learn to manage money independently if they don't have the opportunity to practice it. Among their biggest concerns: Their kids will spend money too quickly: 49%; Their kids will make poor spending decisions: 42%, Their kids will be scammed or make unsafe online purchases: 33%, Their kids aren't mature enough yet: 23%. For parents, the challenge is balancing their kids' growing financial independence with the guidance to develop healthy financial habits. For kids, these skills ensure they can build financial resilience in a changing economy as they transition into adulthood – but it requires them to understand the real-world impact of their financial decisions. | RBC
-
It signed an agreement with CMC Microsystems to join the QCS as a cloud-based computing services provider. The QCS is a research and development program that’s part of the Fabrication of Integrated Components for the Internet’s Edge (FABrIC) network, a federally funded innovation network managed by CMC to bolster Canada’s semiconductor and quantum industries. As part of the QCS, Quandela’s photonic quantum computing capabilities will be available to participating small businesses and researchers. Quandela claims its photonic quantum computer, established in Canada, is the first and only of its kind available on the QCS. Other quantum computing cloud service providers in the sandbox include US-based firms like IonQ, Quantinuum, QuEra, and Rigetti Computing, as well as Sherbrooke, Que.-based PINQ, which operates IBM’s superconducting quantum computer. | BetaKit
The creation of Digital Transformation Canada, which also aims to refine how the government develops, buys and uses technology, among a slew of other priorities. Pichette was Google's chief financial officer between 2008 and 2015 and was also an executive at Bell Canada, McKinsey and Spring Canada. According to the PMO, the new agency will look to scale digital solutions, including artificial intelligence, government-wide to reduce duplicative work and operative costs and strengthen digital sovereignty and security. The release said the agency will also equip public servants with tools to reduce administrative burden to improve efficiency in delivering government services. It also said the agency would employ federal funds to support Canadian AI and digital companies test, scale and commercialize new technologies. The new agency will fall under the purview of Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement Joël Lightbound, and combine Shared Services Canada with parts of the Treasury Board Secretariat, Public Services and Procurement Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada. | CBC
Complex Questions,
Simple Answers
FathomPRO applies advanced financial analysis to reveal critical signals, emerging trends, and tailored, actionable insights. Discover FathomPRO for yourself
