Chen Cindy Sun, FRM

It’s similar to large system design. There are many moving parts, it’s important to stay agile and designing for failure is key. You have a great team of dedicated folks Marino and an entire community behind you. I’m confident KCD Toronto is going to be on the map as one of Canada’s premier tech conferences.

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​A fantastic example of structural change from the Canadian Mathematical Society! ​The CMS has been supporting and promoting Mathematics in Canada since 1945, and seeing them evolve their institutional framework is incredibly encouraging. A great step forward for the community. 👏 ​#Math #Canada #Innovation #CMS

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After giving birth to my first child, I realized how much the resources and support for Canadian moms postpartum need improvement. From fragmented, hard-to-read information about benefits and care options, to finding accessible mental health support, Canadian moms deserve better. That's why I launched maternly.ca - a platform that supports the mother behind the baby. Right now it includes: - A maternity leave calculator to estimate EI and parental benefits - A search tool for provincial and federal programs - A support map showing nearby mental health professionals, postpartum doulas, lactation consultants, and mom groups - Interactive checklists for the hospital, your birth plan, postpartum, and your newborn What's next? - 24/7 mental health support - Maternal health tracking (think: Huckleberry for moms) - Connecting with other moms in your community - Return to work transition support - And more! I'm still early in building this and would really love feedback from others. -> What resources did you wish you had postpartum? -> What would have made that time easier? -> What feature is the most beneficial on the website for you? What do you feel is missing? You can check it out here: maternly.ca and follow us at Maternly I'd appreciate everyone's support and feedback !

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“Responsible use isn’t a checkbox,” Morris says. “It’s embedded in how we build, test and refine AI tools.” 💯 Everything starts with trust.

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Is the structure of the Canadian payments industry about to be fundamentally reshaped? The report of RBC and BMO exploring a ~$2B sale of Moneris is a significant development. Owning a payments processor of this scale (~$700M annual revenue, ~33% market share) has long been a strategic pillar for banks. This potential move raises the question: Are we seeing a broader trend of major banks unbundling their payment infrastructure to focus on their primary financial services? The entrance of a new owner—be it a tech-focused global payments leader or a well-capitalized private equity fund—would inject a completely new set of priorities and investment into the market. This could be a massive accelerant for innovation, but it also changes the strategic calculus for every competitor in the space. What do you believe this signals for the future of bank-owned payment processors in North America?" #PaymentsIndustry #FinTech #MA #CapitalMarkets #MergersAndAcquisitions #PrivateCapital #FinancialServices #Innovation

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ChatGPT apps are the new SEO. Very cool to see Loblaw bring PC Express into ChatGPT and design it around real Canadian needs. When budgets are tight, planning matters, and this lets customers do things like “plan dinners for 4 under $50,” swap to lowest-cost options, or prioritize value brands in seconds. Great example of AI making everyday decisions simpler and more affordable.

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🤝 Advancing Open Banking in Canada through trusted partnerships As Canada moves from policy to implementation under the new Consumer-Driven Banking framework, one thing is clear: Open Banking can only succeed when the entire ecosystem works together. Leaders from across Canada’s financial ecosystem come together in this Powerhouse Debate to explore how collaboration can unlock real benefits for Canadians. The discussion will unpack governance models, operational approaches, and partnership strategies that make Open Banking work at scale. Hear from industry experts: 🔹 Moderator: Joyce Wong, Vice President Open Banking & Payments, Symcor 🔹 Maureen Di Sebastiano, Vice President Open Banking, TD Bank 🔹 Farouk Ferchichi, Chief Executive Officer, Yodlee 🔹 Saba Shariff, Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Product & Innovation Officer, Symcor Discover how coordinated approaches and strong governance are driving secure, practical, and scalable Open Banking: 📅 March 5 | MTCC, Toronto 🎟️ Register now: https://lnkd.in/dvFM8-t

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Real-time payments, enabled by Payments Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR), will reshape how money moves in Canada. With key milestones expected across 2026 and 2027, financial institutions and fintechs should already be preparing. As a key payments provider, Central 1 has been actively preparing for the RTR for several years and supporting our clients as they navigate this transition. 🔗Dive deeper into how the RTR will impact your organization and how to prepare: https://lnkd.in/g_Cz_8VA #RealTimePayments #RTR

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𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵. RBC has acquired Pinch Financial a Toronto fintech focused on making mortgage qualification faster and simpler for borrowers. The financial terms were not publicly disclosed, but the strategic message is clear: RBC wants to accelerate its digital mortgage capabilities and remove friction from the home-buying journey. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: • Mortgage applications are still one of the most frustrating parts of banking for many customers. • Pinch’s platform helps verify identity, income, assets, creditworthiness, and property-related information digitally, which can reduce manual steps and speed up approvals. • RBC says this acquisition will support a quicker, more streamlined mortgage experience for Canadians. What stands out to me is that this is not just an acquisition story. It is a customer experience story. Banks are no longer only competing on rates and branch reach. They are also competing on 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱, simplicity, and digital convenience. RBC’s move shows how seriously major financial institutions are taking embedded fintech capability inside core banking journeys. Pinch CEO Andrew Wells said joining RBC will help the company scale its technology to reach more Canadians, while RBC’s Janet Boyle said the deal supports the bank’s digital roadmap for a faster mortgage experience. For professionals in banking, fintech, product, and digital transformation, this is a strong reminder: the future advantage may come from making complex processes feel effortless for the customer. #RBC #Fintech #MortgageTech #DigitalTransformation #Banking #CustomerExperience #Innovation #CanadianBusiness

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One thing I really appreciate about my new role is that a good portion of my work is now public. I just released a new analysis on Canada’s underlying cost pressures and what they mean for the inflation outlook. In this note, we introduce a new Underlying Cost Index (UCI) that distills signals from a wide range of cost indicators to better understand how they shape inflation dynamics in Canada. Our main finding: while the UCI adds limited value to traditional inflation forecasting models, it plays an important role in assessing inflation risk. In particular, rising cost pressures act as an amplifier of upside inflation risks — and those risks remain present. Full note here: https://lnkd.in/gMPhNiQu

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Does Innovation Have to Wait for Perfect Policy (Or Regulation)? Last week, I wrote about Canada's open banking gridlock—where we're still debating infrastructure while consumers wait for actual solutions. So when I read about Newton's VerifyCRA tool, it felt like a masterclass in what happens when you stop talking and start solving. Is it perfect? No. Does it solve a major customer problem? Absolutely. The Setup: For years, mortgage brokers begged for a way to retrieve client CRA documents without the painful dance of "find your tax return, scan it, email it—oh wait, you need to register for a CRA account first and wait weeks for a security code." Budget 2024 promised to explore solutions. Nothing shipped. The Solution: Newton partnered with Fastkey, used an existing CRA "authorized representative" pathway, and now retrieves tax documents in under 48 hours. No new regulation. No committee. No "alignment discussions." Just a clear problem, a compliant solution, and actual consumer benefit. Sure, it's not real-time, but it's massive progress over perfection—everyone in the ecosystem benefits: brokers, consumers, and lenders. The Lesson: This is the difference between monetization altruism and consumer empowerment. One stays rhetoric. The other becomes a solution people actually use. We've spent years debating perfect standards while real consumer friction persists. We need more private players like Newton who aren't waiting for consensus—they're validating demand, finding compliant paths, and shipping. The Challenge: Maybe we should try this approach with our many delayed initiatives: Pick ONE painful consumer use case, prove it works, then expand. Or we can keep having consultations while builders solve problems around us. Worth a read if you have a moment: https://lnkd.in/gFQpZ_8H

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#RetailSales 🛍️ rose 1.0% month-on-month (m/m) in August, matching Statistics Canada's advanced estimate. However, advanced estimate points to a decline of 0.7% in September. The composition suggests that consumers favoured discretionary retail spending. The gain was led by auto sales, although core sales were also solid, driven by strong sales at general merchandise retailers and clothing/clothing accessories stores. Retail sales data continues to exhibit volatility, with monthly figures alternating between declines and gains. As a result, nominal sales are currently tracking at an annualized rate of 1.2% for the quarter. Abstracting from monthly volatility, the notable slow-down in durable goods spending, particularly autos, suggests real personal spending growth should drift to a below trend rate in the second half of 2025. This should give the #BankofCanada further reason to emphasize economic slack, despite September's unexpected uptick in inflation. See more ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gFFjcYsx

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Everyone loves saying BNPL boosts conversion, but almost nobody asks the real question: does the math actually work in Canada, for the lenders and for the brands, or are we all just eating extra fees to make checkout screens look cooler? I went deep into the numbers and the story is a lot more complicated than the marketing decks make it sound. The Canadian BNPL market is growing insanely fast. Around $2B in 2023, projected to grow 30–35%+ annually this decade. Providers usually charge merchants somewhere around 3–6% plus a per-transaction fee, and the common claim is “20–30% higher conversion” when BNPL is turned on. That’s the pitch: pay more than a credit card, get more orders. But on the lender side, BNPL isn’t some magical margin machine. Global research shows the platforms still struggle with profitability because of high risk costs, funding costs, and the overhead of managing late payments. Even though default percentages can look better than credit cards, the volume of late payments is massive, and it takes real infrastructure to stay afloat. It’s not free yield - it’s a risk business that only works at scale. For brands, the math gets interesting. Let’s simplify it. Say your AOV is $150 with 50% gross margin. If you stick with cards at ~2% fees, your net after payment fees on 100 orders is around $7.2k. Turn on BNPL at a 6% fee and assume you get the 20% uplift -120 orders instead of 100 -you end up at ~$7.9k net. So you’re ahead about 10%. Not bad. But drop that margin. If you’re selling in a 15–20% margin category, those BNPL fees can wipe out almost the entire profit on an order. Suddenly the “boost in conversion” actually burns money. BNPL is incredible for high-margin, emotional categories (beauty, apparel, furniture), and questionable for thin-margin products. There’s also the consumer stress piece that Canada really hasn’t priced in yet. Multiple studies show heavy BNPL users often have several payments due at once across multiple providers. Regulators globally are paying attention because stacked BNPL obligations don’t show up cleanly in traditional credit reporting. Banks in a few countries are already treating heavy BNPL usage as a red flag in underwriting. So is BNPL worth it? I think it depends entirely on how you use it. It’s not a universal growth hack. It’s more like a performance channel. It works when you know your true margin by SKU, you’ve actually run an A/B test on conversion uplift, and you limit BNPL to products where the economics make sense. It absolutely does not work when brands slap it on every SKU without knowing whether the incremental revenue actually beats the incremental fee. If you’re running a brand, the real question is not “Should we offer BNPL?” It’s: “On which products, at what margins, and at what measured uplift does BNPL actually increase profit?” That’s the part nobody talks about. #ecommerce #BNPL #fintech #payments #Shopify #Canada #retail #DTC

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TD’s latest survey reveals something critical: while awareness of AI is rising, confidence and understanding are lagging. As a data science leader supporting Anti-Money Laundering (AML) efforts, I see this gap not just as a challenge — but as a strategic opportunity. At TD, we're applying AI responsibly to protect our customers and strengthen the integrity of the financial system. In high-stakes areas like AML, this means more than just deploying algorithms — it means ensuring transparency, explainability, and human oversight at every step. What’s encouraging is that TD isn’t waiting for the world to catch up — we’re helping lead the way. From customer education to responsible innovation, we’re committed to making AI safer, smarter, and more accessible for everyone. The future of AI in financial services depends on trust — and trust starts with understanding. Let’s build that future, together. #AI #DataScience #AML #ResponsibleAI #TD #FinancialCrime #TechForGood #TrustInAI #HumanInTheLoop #AIinBanking

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Retail sales began the year on a positive note, but things could get bumpy 📌  Canadian retail sales data point to a +1.1% advance month-to-month in January, with a preliminary flash of +0.9% in February. Growth in January was broad-based, with only three categories contracting (gasoline stations, food and beverage retailers, and clothing stores) and all provinces posting gains. 📌  Preliminary data indicates a jump in zero-emission vehicle sales as early as February, with the new federal rebate kicking in on February 16. With ongoing volatility in gas prices, electric vehicles have additional appeal, and this could continue to be apparent in March data. 📌 Looking ahead, consumers are expected to feel squeezed due to rising gasoline prices in March and April, and this could well impact other categories of retail purchases, especially non-essential items. 

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Just read the "AI Disruption of the Financial Services Data Industry: A Portage Perspective" essay (link in comments). I think is a very well written post, and recommend folks spending time on it. "Next-generation data distribution and insights (Data Distribution): Distribution is the layer in the financial data value chain most ripe for disruption as incumbents unbundle their products. Current solutions are clunky; API-based platforms that feature low- or no-code interfaces represent the future for buyers and how they want to manage data." I couldn't agree more with this sentence. Also, I wanted to point out that in the current market map - there's only 1 logo that appears in 5 out of the 6 quadrants :)

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