PAyFiRmA
michael Gokturk
2010
30
payment processing
gokturk, who has a background in
investment banking, saw opportuni-
ties for innovation in the payments
industry. he launched toronto-
based versapay corp. in 2006,
taking it public four years later.
payfirma is his second firm
payfirma was the first in canada to
introduce mobile technology that
allows businesses to accept credit
and debit card payments online
ally. among the company's partners
are canadian imperial Bank of
commerce, canadian Western Bank
and central 1 credit Union
COmPAny
FOunDeR(s)
LAunCheD
emPLOyees
niChe
ORiGin sTORy
innOvATiOn
BAnk RATinG
kOhO
Daniel eberhard, Jonathan Bixby,
Joshua Bixby, mike Benna
2014
15
mobile banking
ceo eberhard turned a university
class project into a wind farm
company that he sold to renewable
energy titan algonquin power &
Utilities corp. in 2011. With koho, he
then turned his attention to taking
on canada's banking giants, which
charge some of the world's highest
user fees
the smart spending account
allows people to pay their bills,
deposit money and save, mostly
without fees. clients can make
purchases with a reloadable
koho visa card, which earns
the company money through
interchange fees
disruptor. Besides visa inc.,
partners include vancouver-based
federally regulated financial institu-
tion peoples trust co., which holds
koho customers' money
18 BCBusiness march 2018 soUrces: Bc tech association, listed companies
from bookkeeping to blockchain, vancouver's fintech stars are growing up and
looking to go global
by Nathan Caddell and Scott Neufeld
mATRIX
Money Masters
C
all it Western
nancial alien-
ation. With
Canada's big banks and
traditional nance play-
ers headquartered in
Toronto, perhaps it's no
surprise that B.C. is home
to many of the country's
most promising and
disruptive ntech com-
panies. Backed by some
sizeable investments,
these businesses are
shaking up the nancial
sector by using technol-
o•y in novel ways. But
this isn't a new trend on
the West Coast.
Fintech players such
as Victoria's Beanstream
Internet Commerce Inc.,
along with online invest-
ment broker Qtrade
Financial Group and
payments company Tio
Networks Corp., both
headquartered in
Vancouver, launched
in the early days of the
Web. All three were later
acquired: U.S. giant
PayPal Holdings
Inc. bought Tio for
$304 million last year,
Beanstream was sold to
U.S.-based Digital River
Inc. and then Sweden's
Bambora in 2015, and
Quebec's Desjardins
Group picked up Qtrade
in 2013.
Now a fresh crop of
B.C. ntech outts are
scaling up to make bank-
ing easier—and maybe
turn the established
nancial world upside
down. Here's a sampling.
and debit card payments online
mong the company's partners
deposit money and save, mostly
disruptor. Besides
