With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1296256
16 BCBUSINESS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020 READ THIS You've seen the antique red W jutting from the downtown Vancouver redevelopment built on its remains, but did you know that Woodward's once reportedly housed the world's biggest grocery shop? In Food Floor: My Woodward's Days, Langley-based author Margaret Cadwaladr takes us back to the 1960s, when she worked as a cashier at the venerable department store. With help from archival photos, her memoir revives the institution, its vast food selection and a long-vanished Vancouver. Cadwaladr, who completed the slim volume as COVID-19 erupted, also pays tribute to grocery store clerks and cashiers who have served us through the pandemic. "This book is dedicated to their courage and hard work," she writes. Madrona Books & Publishing 65 pages, softcover, $15.95 • ( the informer ) G O F I G U R E payments and other services. Now account holders could authorize a fintech provider to have access to their account information on demand. That meant fintechs could offer ways of transferring funds that were convenient for consumers and less costly for merchants. PSD2 took that process fur- ther by issuing fintechs account codes similar to those of banks that are recognized by finan- cial institutions worldwide. They could now directly issue payment instruments such as credit or debit cards or phone apps to access the accounts that consumers held with banks. On May 21, RevoluGroup became one of only five companies so far—the others include Face- book and Google—to hold a PSD2 licence. "The first thing we did was create our own Visa card," Mar- shall says. Unlike past branded cards, it wasn't done in partner- ship with a bank. The company aims to operate in market seg- ments from remittances to real estate to e-gaming. Marshall uses the example of sending e-cash to a brother who's lost his wallet while travelling in Thailand: you can send cash from your bank account to his phone that will be accepted wherever a Visa card would be, for a fraction of the cost of a wire transfer. Or, thinking bigger, say you're buy- ing a property in Arizona; you can transfer the money direct to the seller's agent or lawyer, all for a more competitive exchange rate and lower fees than any bank would offer. For now, this service is only available in euros through Rev- oluGroup's branch in Barcelona (where the development team is based). But Marshall hopes it will soon be able to operate in Canada, too. Pushed by the ECB to create its own open banking framework, Ottawa created a task force last year to study the issue. Though its report has been delayed by COVID, many still hope for a document mak- ing recommendations for legis- lation this fall. RevoluGroup is far from the only Canadian fintech eagerly awaiting the advent of regu- lated open banking in Canada. The founders of B.C.-based Clearly Payments, though, are happy to see the federal gov- ernment take its time and hear from all the stakeholders. They don't want the country's bank- ing oligopoly disrupted only to have it replaced by a handful of multinational tech giants. "Open banking at its core is about building that trust system where data can be easily shared to provide more personalized services, faster services and more security in certain ways," says Kalle Rad- age, Clearly Payments director and technology lead. The key tools are so-called application program interfaces ( APIs), se- cure data-sharing channels that enable any service provider of the account holder's choosing to get in on the payments busi- ness. Clearly Payments works with medical and dental offices to embed payment systems into their practice management software, enabling them to circumvent credit-card trans- actions that might take days to process and cost $2,000 a month in fees. "If we can access financial data for our merchants through APIs, we can make a financial adjudication decision much quicker, so that allows them to start taking payments much quicker," says Clearly Payments CEO Chris Farmer. "Also, we get a more holistic story of their fi- nancial position that will affect the rates they are paying." Even in the absence of a legal framework, COVID-19 is driving adoption of electronic transfers. Since the pandemic hit, "we haven't had one con- versation with our clients that did not include contactless payments," Farmer says. Fur- ther, considering the damage already done to the economy, "open banking can help facili- tate a recovery." • Baby Blues The province took its first steps toward a $10/day child-care plan—just in time for kids to be sent home. As families wait to see what COVID brings this fall, we take a look at what's changed, and what hasn't, for working parents in B.C. by Melissa Edwards AS OF THE 2016 CENSUS, B.C. WAS HOME TO 220,625 CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 5 By 2024, the number of kids under age 12 in Metro Vancouver is expected to grow 7.6%, to 350,068 Child care is the 2nd-highest expense, after housing, for B.C. families LAST YEAR, METRO VANCOUVER HAD 18.6 CHILD-CARE SPACES FOR EVERY 100 KIDS from 16 in 2011 CANADIAN AVERAGE: 27.2 A 2018 Statistics Canada survey found that 46.5% of B.C. families with kids 5 or under had difficulty accessing child care Reasons cited (by share of children, omitting confidential responses): 17.8% 15.9% 12.6% 11.3% 10.6% 8.6% 5% 3.9% AVAILABILITY AFFORDABILITY FLEXIBILITY QUALITY NO LICENSED DAYCARE NO QUALIFIED DAYCARE CAN'T TAKE MORE THAN ONE KID OTHER