Oct. 31, 2018 /BNN Bloomberg/ – Canadian regulations are holding back the country’s financial technology industry and complicating top lenders’ foreign expansion plans, according to the Desmarais family scion in charge of Power Corp. of Canada’s start-up strategy.
With fewer partnership options at home, where it’s hard to nurture leaders in the automation of financial services, Canadian banks are at a disadvantage when trying to grow in the U.S. and beyond, said Paul Desmarais III, the executive chairman and co-founder of Power’s in-house venture fund Portag3.
“They’re going to be competing against banks like JPMorgan that I think are extremely advanced in their adoption of technology,” he said in an interview Wednesday on the sidelines of Canada’s Fintech Forum in Montreal. Such banks, including Wells Fargo & Co., “will ultimately have opportunities to do things that are harder for banks that don’t partner to do.”