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OVERVIEW
Similar to other traditional industries, a digital revolution for financial services is underway. Financial technology, or ''FinTech," is an accelerating technical sector gaining in popularity with both traditional financial institutions and new market entrants. Competitors are forming constructive partnerships to collaborate, efficiently develop, and deploy new FinTech products and services. Patents for core technology provide a mechanism to exclude others from making, using or selling patented technology. A company may also permit use of patented technology by third parties or contribute to a patent pool using various licensing arrangements while still maintaining control of its intellectual property rights. However, recent case law and patent office guidelines make obtaining global patent protection for FinTech an increasingly complex matter.
FINTECH PRIMER
FinTech is transforming the financial sector by supplementing or replacing traditional services, business models and providers. FinTech may create brand new market opportunities or give a competitive edge in relation to traditional offerings. This may have broad ranging implications for diverse stakeholders, including major financial institutions, insurance companies, hedge funds, institutional investors, ratings agencies, audit and accounting firms, regulators, technology companies, consortiums, not-for-profits and start-ups. Indeed, large institutions may be making significant investments upgrading or replacing legacy technology systems with new FinTech products.
PAYMENTS
Digital wallet technology is currently already in public use and will likely be employed on a widespread scale in the future. Digital cards include credit cards, debit cards, public transportation cards and other value cards offered by different companies. Mobile technology companies and retailers are entering the payment space with smartphone payment tokens, networks and applications.
Digital payment accounts like PayPal® are also widely accepted on e-commerce platforms and by the public at large, with intramember payment exchanges often not involving traditional financial institutions. Shopify®, for example, is an online and brick-and-mortar transaction platform provider based in Ottawa, and raised $131 million in its initial public offering. Another payment company, Adyen®, is now valued at $2.3 billion that enables Web companies such as Facebook® and Yelp® to accept and process payments, and provides mobile-payment tools for clients such as Uber® and Airbnb®. Finally, Nanopay®, a Torontobased provider of a payment and loyalty mobile application that combines identity, loyalty and payment into a single-use transaction token for contactless payment, recently acquired...