Canadian Financial Institutions Collaborate With FinTechs as Banking Evolves

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - March 29, 2016) - Canadian banks are becoming more tech-savvy, thanks to a growing number of collaborations between traditional financial institutions and emerging FinTech start-ups.

Despite the fact 83% of traditional finance firms believe their business is at risk by a FinTech disrupter, a growing number of Canadian institutions are recognizing the value FinTech companies can add to their business, helping to nimbly and efficiently drive business forward and keep up with changing consumer demands and behavior.

For the FinTech industry, there's little to gain from disruption and a full-on upheaval of the traditional finance landscape. Rather, collaboration with these traditional institutions offers the most opportunity. Through this collaboration, each individual service provider and financial partner can contribute specific strengths to the industry as a whole, amplifying overall value. More often than not, through these partnerships, FinTech is complimentary to the products and services of traditional banks. This process is proving useful to consumers also - providing quicker, more cost effective ways to get loans, improved payment processing, and even a streamlined process for overseas money transfers.

Some recent collaborations include:

• CIBC's recent partnership with Thinking Capital, a small business loan provider, to provide rapid loans in a matter of days rather than weeks
• RBC and Ripple to create ledger-based remittances
• First West and Grow's recent alliance to provide credit union members with a faster, and potentially cheaper, loan product

According to Rod Hsu, president of nTrust, a Vancouver-based FinTech company, "Not only are these partnerships valuable to the banks but also to the FinTech company, providing greater access to consumers and potential clients under well established brands and a platform to help further leverage innovation."

As financial institutions continue to navigate the changing landscape and ultimately determine which direction to move it, the first step is to create these partnerships with emerging technology.

About nTrust

nTrust is a rapidly growing online and mobile money transfer platform that helps people around the world instantly move and access their money. Using nTrust, members can send money to friends, cash out to their bank account, spend money through their phone, or load funds to a prepaid card to use anywhere the MasterCard® Acceptance Mark is displayed, online or in-person. nTrust's proprietary technology uses the highest encryption standards and is "PCI-DSS Level 1" certified, which remains the top global standard for operational and technical security designed by Visa, MasterCard®, and American Express.