2019 Canada FinTech Forum Recap

A group of TickSmithers were at the 2019 Canada FinTech Forum, where we kept in touch with old friends, met new ones and participated in brain dates and speaking activities. Hosted by Finance Montréal, this was the 7th edition of the national forum. TickSmith partnered with AWS and Slalom to bring the DeepRacer to Montréal, in what is its first appearance in Québec. We learned so much about what’s new in the FinTech industry from the exhibitors, speakers, and one-on-one braindates. Here’s a recap.

SLALOM – OUR BOOTH-MATE

The sales and marketing team from Slalom were our booth-mates along with AWS in the Deloitte Techno Zone. Slalom has helped clients in the financial industry with digital cloud infrastructure projects. They collaborate with clients, helping them to learn from their data, create incredible digital experiences, and make the most of new tech.

We heard of success stories such as one Canadian company, who went through a digital transformation with Slalom. The results are impressive with all targets met, some even at a double rate. A data-driven, current technology strategy is what helped this particular company to grow to an unimaginable level.

30 MINUTE WORKSHOP WITH TICKSMITH’S COO

Our COO, David Côté, hosted a 30-minute workshop with interested guests regarding the topic, “Easily Manage Your Data at Scale in the Cloud, An Example with Data Monetization.” Guests wanted to know more about accessing data and wanted to learn more about Ticksmith’s approach and processes regarding Big Data ingestion and distribution on the cloud. 

FLASH TALKS AT THE DELOITTE TECHNO ZONE STAGE

AWS – PUTTING AI AND ML IN THE HANDS OF EVERY DEVELOPER

AWS Solutions Architect, Carlos Castorani, gave examples of how the Cloud is transforming businesses. One local example is that of The National Bank, who is using AWS to run their Hadoop platform along with TickSmith’s GOLD Software, for their Group Equities Derivatives team to run post-trade analysis on their data. Another example is the National Australia Bank, who recently migrated their all of their internal infrastructure to the cloud.

In regards to AI, SunLife Insurance is leveraging the cloud creatively, having developed an Alexis application that clients can ask via voice what the balance of their health accounts are. 

https://youtu.be/jtYFxD6IrlQ

TICKSMITH – ADDRESSING DATA CHALLENGES IN CAPITAL MARKETS

TickSmith’s Product Manager, Nic Doyen, delivered a 5 minute talk on data challenges that financial institutions are facing today. Nic showed a slide with three pillars, left, right, and center. The left pillar is the data coming in, the right pillar is the data coming out. The middle pillar is data at rest, which focuses on how companies can extract value from their own data.

One of the challenges of the left pillar, data coming in, is validating the data and making sure that what is going in is useful. Another challenge is the standardization of the various different file formats. The right pillar illustrates how users, whether internal or external, can access the data and how companies need to control who can access certain types of data, while giving the end-user the ability to customize the data for use. Finally, the middle pillar focuses on how to extract value from the data, whether it’s through analytics or AI. 

THOUGHTS FROM FOLKS IN THE INDUSTRY

David Oram, Emerging Technology Analyst at Renno & Co, thinks AI is going the same path that electricity did in the past. In time, every person will have access to AI and it will become the norm.

Omer Ismail, a partner at Goldman Sachs and the head of the firm’s US Consumer business, was interviewed in the part, “A view on Marcus by Goldman Sachs and Apple Card.” In his interview, he spoke about how the Apple Card is different from every business model that Goldman Sachs has been in during the last 150 years. For example, the business doesn’t interact with the customer face-to-face, only online or through its call center. It is also run algorithmically, 24/7. FinTech technology has enabled this new business model for the long-established financial institution.

THE PAST & THE FUTURE AT THE MONTRÉAL FINTECH FORUM

In 2015, we were named the winner and best new discovery in the “7 minutes to win” contest at the forum. Our team has since grown tremendously and our main software, the GOLD Platform, has technologically evolved in several ways. We’d like to congratulate the winners this year, Flare Systems, who won the $25,000 Jury Prize for their pitch this year.

It’s been over four years since winning the start-up pitch, and so much has changed within the FinTech Industry. We look forward to keeping up to date with everything at next year’s event.

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