The conference will explore accelerated blockchain and fintech trends and innovations paving the way to mass adoption and scale.

TORONTO — May 6, 2020 — The Fintech & Financing Conference and Expo (#FFCON21), Canada’s premier fintech conference organized by The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA), Toronto Finance International (TFI), and partners announced its agenda and speaker line-up for its seventh annual event taking place online from May 11 to May 13, 2021.

Building on the success of previous conferences will bring together an international community of leading voices in fintech, digital banking, payments, tokenization, blockchain, CBDCs, digital identity, AI, capital markets innovation, and finance – all in an immersive and interactive platform. The FFCON21 audience is composed of 500 global fintech companies, financial institutions, investors, tech providers, government, and media. 

This year’s theme is ‘Breaking Barriers’ reflecting the growth and emerging challenges that the Canadian fintech industry must navigate to achieve mass adoption and scale. Through keynotes, lively panel discussions, and workshops the conference will share new ideas and thought-provoking insights into:

• AI and the future of innovation in financial services
• The rise of decentralized finance and web 3.0 and its barriers to adoption
• The future of NFTs and what happens when your customers are augmented humans, robots, and virtual beings?
• Diversity and inclusion: beyond disclosures
• How millennials and Gen Z are changing the financial landscape
• Retail investors, stakeholder capitalism and IPO innovations
• Stablecoins and central bank digital currencies
• Open finance and composable banking
• Inclusive banking and affordable credit
• First federally chartered digital asset bank
• Fintech’s opportunity to breaking barriers to net zero
• Data rights and how decentralized technologies are shaping our future
• Blockchain and renewable energies
• China vs USA and what it means for tech innovation and global fintech markets
• Strengthening Canada’s innovation capacity and global competitiveness

This year’s event features over 100 notable speakers including:

Keynotes:

• Don Tapscott, executive chairman, Blockchain Research Institute
• Sophia, humanoid robot, Hanson Robotics
• David Hanson Ph.D., founder, chairman, chief creative officer, Hanson Robotics
• Ben Goertzel, CEO, Singularity NET
• Cathy Hackl, futurist + chief metaverse officer, Futures Intelligence Group
• Hester M. Peirce, commissioner, Securities Exchange Commission
• Hrish Lotlikar, co-founder and CEO, SuperWorld
• Ethan Pierse, founding partner/ director, Borderless Ventures / CryptoAssets Institute
• Winston Ma, CFA & Esq., chairman of advisory board, ThreeFold Tech; Author of The Hunt for Unicorns and The Digital War; former managing director of CIC

Government:

• Senator Colin Deacon, Senator, Senate of Canada
• Hon Peter Bethlenfalvy, Minister of Finance and President of the Treasury Board, Government of Ontario
• Hon. Doug Schweitzer, Minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation, Government of Alberta
• Judith Robertson, Commissioner Financial Consumer Agency of Canada
• Jennifer Reynolds, President & CEO, Toronto Finance International

Innovation:

• Mark Maybank, managing partner, Maverix Private Equity
• Jean Desgagne, CEO, Stablecorp Inc.
• Betty DeVita, CBO, Finconectra
• Christin Friedrich, chair European Crowdfunding Network, CEO Innovestment
• Andrew Graham, co-founder & CEO, Borrowell
• Brittany Kaiser, independent chairperson of the board, Gryphon Digital Mining
• Hamzah Nassif, partner, Real Ventures
• Krista Kim, digital artist, Global Ambassador of SuperWorld
• Lawrence Lewis, founder, OneFeather
• David Unsworth, co-founder and general partner, Information Venture Partners
• Timothy Li, CEO at Wikipro Inc, CEO at Alchemy
• Chris Goodman, advisory services, Credit Union Digital Transformation, CuDigital.ca
• David Lucatch, co-founder, director and president, Liquid Avatar Technologies
• Jeff Lynn, executive chairman and co-founder, Seedrs
• David Nault, co-founder and general partner, Luge Capital
• Tom Baumann, CEO and co-founder, ClimateCHECK
• Georgia Quinn, general counsel, Anchorage
• Kris Read, co-founder and CTO, Neo FinancialSom Seif, CEO, Purpose Financial / Purpose Investments
• David Taylor, president and CEO, Versabank

Full list here.

The event will also feature the second annual 2021 Fintech Draft, designed to identify and feature emerging and high growth fintech start-ups and scaleups. Inspired by sports league drafts.

Congratulations to the six Fintech Draft pitching finalists listed below who will battle in FFCON21’s pitching competition for prizes and exposure:

Agryo — a global risk intelligence provider that enables financial institutions to assess and manage financial risks in the crop field level for underwriting agriculture insurance, loans, and trade finance globally; as well as meet sustainability goals.

Copia Wealth Studios — a financial intelligence platform that uses modern design and machine learning to bring all investments (including Alternatives and Illiquid assets) into one elegant view.

ForwardAI — a simple, single, and lender-first API that delivers the most robust accounting and financial data suite for small-business lending.

Nava — A software as a service (SaaS) company that offers an ecosystem of socially responsible fintech products for credit unions, helping them compete with big banks.

Orchid B — the premium platform of choice for back-office functions including business registration, banking, cards, foreign exchange, insurance, accounting, and payroll. Enabling the self-employed and small businesses to transact efficiently and cost-effectively.

Phaze — Phaze makes digital money instantly immediately spendable in over 80 countries but also makes digital money go further, providing neobanks, wallets and fintech companies with a discount off the total value of any transaction.

The agenda can be accessed on the programme page.

Registration for FFCON21 DIGITAL is still open. Register for your tickets here: https://fintechandfunding.com/tickets/

Further information about the conference series can be found at www.fintechandfunding.com