The IT Nerd

Romance scams cost Canadians over $58.4M in 2024, with median losses exceeding $2,000 per victim. Visa is sharing expert insights to help consumers recognize red flags and protect themselves from romance scams this Valentine’s Day.

Red Flags 🚩 

• Tragic backstories – Be cautious of early tragic stories, especially if they lead to requests for money. Scammers use emotional tales to elicit sympathy and financial aid. 
• Too good to be true –  Scammers often create profiles with model-like photos and flawless backgrounds, while genuine profiles usually have a mix of candid and professional photos 
• Too soon “I Love You” – Scammers use flattery and quick declarations of love to emotionally manipulate victims. If someone professes love too soon, be cautious. 
• Avoiding video calls – If your match avoids video calls or meetings, they may be hiding something. Scammers dodge face-to-face interactions to sustain their deception. 

Read more tips from Visa here.  

Today, Visa Canada announced the recipients of its She’s Next Grant Program. Aiming to uplift women-owned small businesses, the program awards 10 winners a $10,000 CAD grant and access to an accelerated mentorship program through York University’s YSpace.

According to Visa Canada’s latest Small Business Pulse report, only 43% of Canadian small to medium enterprises (SMEs) say they are fully funded, the lowest mark since the study began in 2020^. Funding continues to be an important issue among women entrepreneurs, with six in 10 women small business owners reporting they are seeking additional financial support compared to four in 10 women a year ago.

To date, the program has awarded $600,000 CAD to women-owned small businesses and countless hours of mentorship to women entrepreneurs across Canada. The recipients of this round span industries from fashion and wellness to technology and waste management, they include:

• aGRO Systems, Calgary, AB: aGRO Systems is a waste up-cycling and livestock feed provider on a mission to produce healthy carbon-neutral food and drink and help other agri-producers and agri-processors do the same profitably. The company transforms spent grain, an unavoidable by-product created in the process of making beer and alcoholic products, into affordable livestock feed for small to medium-scale livestock ranchers.
• Apricotton, Toronto, ON: Apricotton is a Toronto-based teen bra brand that helps girls feel confident in their first bra. The brand is the only bra brand globally that designs bras that expands and adjusts as the girl grows, lasting multiple stages of puberty.
• Bold Helmets, Toronto, ON: Bold Helmets has developed the first safety-certified multi-sport helmet for kids aged 5 and up of the Sikh faith who have long uncut hair. Tina Singh couldn’t find a helmet to fit her kids when they started riding bikes, so she took it upon herself to create a product that worked for kids like hers.
• Canadian Succulents, Uxbridge, ON: Canadian Succulents cultivates and distributes drought-tolerant house plants, offering creative horticultural solutions to enhance homes, businesses and events. The company prioritizes sustainable cultivation practices and hosts educational workshops and seminars to share the latest insights and knowledge in horticulture.
• CAYA Health Centre, Vancouver, BC: CAYA (or Come As You Are) Health Centre is a multidisciplinary medical and allied health centre focused on serving all women, trans, and non-binary individuals. The first clinic of its kind in Vancouver, CAYA Health Centre offers a one-stop shop specifically for women, trans, and non-binary individuals.
• FemTherapeutics, Montreal, QC: FemTherapeutics takes a personalized approach to treating female issues related to pelvic organ prolapse. To do this, FemTherapeutics provides a comfortable and tailor-made prosthesis for each patient, minimizing their clinical failure rate. The goal of this company is to provide effective symptomatic relief as well as to ensure a better quality of life for women.
• Tall Size, Toronto, ON: Tall Size is the first multi-brand retailer exclusively for tall women. Customers can buy, sell and discover clothing made specifically for tall women with access to over 20 tall brands and counting.
• Twenty One Toys, Toronto ON: Twenty One Toys, is a multi-award-winning training and development toy company using toys to teach skills like empathy, failure, and creative communication. Founder Ilana Ben-Ari was given a design challenge to create a navigational aid for the visually impaired for a university project, where she created The Empathy Toy to bridge the social and emotional gap between the visually impaired and sighted community.
• Rootd, Vancouver, BC: Rootd is the #1 ranked mobile app for panic attack and anxiety relief. This scientifically validated app blends stigma-breaking design, on-demand accessibility, and therapist-approved lessons and exercises to help users during all stages of managing panic attacks and anxiety. 
• Zuri & Dre, Montreal, QC: Zuri & Dre offers plush dolls, home decor, stationery and accessories, that are unique with the aim of diversifying representation in children’s toys. 

Recognizing the need for resources to secure funding, Visa recently announced a new collaboration with Fundica, North America’s leading funding search engine, to democratize access to government funding for small businesses and entrepreneurs with an emphasis on underrepresented communities. As part of Visa Canada’s commitment to supporting Canadian entrepreneurs, Visa offers several tools and resources like Visa SavingsEdge and the Visa Canada Small Business Hub, which hosts resources for small businesses to support driving efficiency, fraud mitigation and sales through the expansion of e-commerce, digital payments, marketing and more.

To learn more about the program and recipients, visit: Visa.ca/grantprogram. 

Today, Visa announced the appointment of Michiel Wielhouwer, previously the Executive Director of Visa’s France, Belgium, and Luxembourg business, to President and Country Manager for Visa Canada. He will succeed Stacey Madge, who served in this role for the past seven years. 

Wielhouwer joins Visa Canada at a time of growth and opportunity as the company establishes new secure ways to pay, driven by its innovation and fintech strategy. Wielhouwer will continue to deliver value for Visa’s key clients, partners, and stakeholders while living the company’s purpose to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.  

Wielhouwer is a Visa veteran with 22 years of experience across five different markets. He brings deep financial services knowledge and leadership to Canada. Originally from the Netherlands and a multi-lingual speaker, Wielhouwer’s global background is a welcome addition to the multicultural and bilingual Canadian market. 

Wielhouwer steps into the role following the successful leadership of Stacey Madge. In Madge’s seven years with the organization, Visa Canada has seen tremendous growth through new client relationships, fintech collaborations, product innovations, and acceleration of money movement. Under her leadership, Canada has become a talent hub for Visa and a respected payments leader in the country. In her next chapter, Madge will be dedicating her talents to board, community, and foundation work.  

Visa Canada has announced a new alliance with Plug and Play, one of the world’s largest accelerators and venture capital firms. As a founding sponsor, Visa will support Plug and Play’s entrance into the Canadian fintech market and together, establish a platform to enable fintechs to flourish. 

The Canadian fintech industry is experiencing tremendous growth with an expected compound annual growth rate of 25% through 2029. Through this collaboration, fintechs will access the power, scale, trust, and security of Visa’s global network. They will also be invited to exclusive, interactive events where they can learn, collaborate, network, and connect with new partners to grow their business.  

This relationship builds on Visa’s successful collaboration with Plug and Play in the U.S. which launched an Inclusive Fintech Accelerator program to help foster diversity and inclusivity in the sector by addressing some of the unique challenges faced by diverse founders in the tech industry. Founders selected to be a part of the program receive access to Visa products, APIs, and insights. 

Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program 

Visa’s commitment to enhancing the payment ecosystem includes working shoulder to shoulder with fintechs through a number of programs created to support the industry, like Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program. This initiative is designed to help fintech and crypto companies bring new payments solutions to market with speed, harnessing the reach, capabilities, and security of VisaNet, Visa’s global payment network. Through the program, approved fintech startups can strengthen global payout service offerings, expand capabilities, and gain access to Visa’s growing partner network of 4.1 billion cards and 80 million merchant locations worldwide in over 200 countries and territories.

Learn more about Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program here. 

Visa and CIBC announced a new collaboration that will enable the bank’s clients to send funds to family and friends across borders more conveniently. Thanks to the innovative money movement capabilities of Visa Direct, CIBC and Simplii clients will soon be able to send money to a new range of digital wallets in key remittance destinations including the Philippines, China, Bangladesh, and Kenya, where they are the primary method for people to pay and get paid. The new capability will be made available early this year.  

Driven by rapidly changing consumer demands, digital wallets are among the fastest growing financial instruments in the world, with global numbers expected to cross 5.2 billion by 2026. Particularly for unbanked individuals in emerging markets, digital wallets serve as a valuable gateway to the financial system.

This announcement builds on the companies’ earlier collaboration that enables CIBC and Simplii clients to use Visa Direct-enabled cross-border person-to-person (P2P) and business-to-consumer (B2C) payouts through CIBC’s and Simplii’s Global Money Transfer service. 

Despite the swift global shift to digital platforms recently, certain cross-border money movement channels remain fragmented. The latest findings from Visa’s ‘Money Travels: 2023 Digital Remittances Adoption’ study suggest that consumers anticipate a future driven by digital technology in this area. Canada ranks among the world’s top ‘sender’ nations—those that send the highest amounts of money to recipients in foreign countries.³ In fact, 60% to 70% of remittance users in Canada and the U.S. have utilized an app-based digital payment method for international money transfers.

Research by Simplii Financial revealed that three-quarters (75%) of respondents send money overseas at least once a month; nearly eight in ten (79%) are seeking a more convenient way to send money to friends and family outside Canada, and half spend more than $100 annually on transfer fees.

Visa Direct provides access to nearly 8.5 billion endpoints, including 3+ billion accounts, 3+ billion cards and 2.5+ billion digital wallets. Visa Direct is helping transform global money movement by facilitating the delivery of funds to eligible wallets, bank accounts, and cards around the world.  

For more information, please visit visa.ca.  

Visa has announced two new collaborations, with Air Transat and London Drugs, to expand Instalments enabled by Visa to more eligible Canadian credit cardholders. Using Installments enabled by Visa, consumers can convert qualifying purchases into smaller, equal installment payments over a specified period of time, using their eligible credit card.

Visa research shows that nearly half of Canadian consumers prefer their installment financing be provided by their current credit card issuer and 30% say they would be more likely to purchase again at the store if it was an available payment option.¹ Air Transat and London Drugs are the latest to join a growing list of retailers supporting Installments enabled by Visa.

Installments enabled by Visa provides issuers, processors, and retailers an option to seamlessly add a flexible payment option for their customers. For more information on Visa Installments, visit: Visa.ca/installments.

Visa Canada has announced that Sam Fuda will assume the role of Vice President, Head of Commercial and Money Movement (CMS), Canada succeeding Jim Filice.

In this role, Fuda will be responsible for leading the market strategy, product development and sales across money movement, commercial, real-time payments, and open banking. He will also be responsible for developing and building our external reputation for commercial and money movement, leading overall CMS performance for Canada including revenue, AANR, and further evolving the ecosystem. Prior Fuda was in the role of VP, Financial Partnerships for CIBC.

Fuda will become a member of the Canada Leadership Team along with the North America Commercial and Money Movement Solution teams. He will report directly to Yanilsa Gonzalez-Ore, SVP Visa Direct NA & Global Ecosystem, and have a dual report to Stacey Madge, SVP, President and Country Manager and Veronica Fernandez, SVP, Head of NA CMS.

Fuda has over 20 years of financial services experience with a particular focus in Payments. He is an analytical thinker and problem-solver with a strong ability to drive end-to-end growth strategies and has a proven record for driving results.  While he was responsible for leading Visa’s account team and overseeing the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) relationship, he developed expertise in Visa’s emerging money movement business and established CIBC as one of Visa’s critical relationships in the space.

Visa Canada announced that effective today, Dan Iwachiw will assume the role of Vice President, Head of Canada Products. An industry veteran with 20+ years in the financial services sector, Iwachiw will oversee the growth, adoption and evolution of Visa Canada products and solutions spanning consumer products, digital, risk, installments, and loyalty. 

Based in Toronto, Iwachiw will report directly to Stacey Madge, President and Country Manager of Visa Canada, as well as Dan Sanford, Head of Regional Product Solutions for North America. 

Dan brings in-depth knowledge of the payments industry to the role.  Over the course of his 11-year tenure with Visa, he has held various roles across Consulting & Analytics, Strategy & Operations, Business Development and Financial Partnerships. He also serves as executive chair for the Visa Canada Employee Engagement committee. Prior to his journey at Visa, Iwachiw spent 11 years at American Express Canada.