The coronavirus has wreaked havoc among the world’s FinTech companies. Now, the National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA) has sent an open letter to the Canadian government to help the nation’s FinTech industry.
“The Canadian government should recognise that FinTech companies can play a central role in distributing capital to small businesses and early-stage companies,” the open letter said. “Online lending and crowdfunding platforms have invested to build the software for onboarding, screening, approval, distributing and servicing of loans and investments to Canadian small businesses. Canada’s regulators and policymakers need to work with our FinTech entrepreneurs who have the digital infrastructure to help the Canadian government achieve its goal of saving small businesses and getting the economy get back on track faster.”
The NCFA also made four recommendations for how the government could help the sector. Those were to work with FinTechs to administer small business loans to deserving companies; expedite full harmonisation of equity and lending crowdfunding regulations and widen participation among companies and investors; establish a two-pronged capital raise funding programme to improve access to capital for earlier stage companies, and introduce tax relief for equity crowdfunding investors similar to the EIS/SEIS programmes in the UK.
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