NUMEROLOGY

Helping businesses prove their cash is clean has become a money spinner

31,000 That's how many Canadian businesses are subject to reporting requirements under federal laws against money laundering. They include banks, accounting firms and the fast-growing fintech industry, the main focus of companies in the emerging regulation technology sector—like Vancouver's Trulioo, whose identity verification systems help businesses prove they aren't helping hide dirty money. But after Postmedia Network Inc. revealed that more than half of some 220 B.C. real estate companies examined by the Financial Transaction and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada ( FINTRAC) from 2012 to 2016 didn't adequately report suspicious transactions, regtech may find a big new local market. “It's an interesting use case,” says Trulioo GM Zac Cohen, a speaker at the Money Laundering in Canada forum, in Victoria from September 11 to 13. “If you are fully identified, and we know who you are, it lessens the incentive to do something you shouldn't be doing.”