Hi everyone!
Our second annual Fall Conference was a success, and we thank you all for coming!
We wanted to share with you a quick summary of the event, including our participants, the results of our survey and other feedback:
This year's participants:
- 161 registered attendees including:
- 96 members, 65 non-members
- 121 companies represented including;
- 77 MSBs, registered with FINTRAC
- 27 businesses associated with MSB industry (consulting, etc.)
- 6 law firms
- 4 banks (BMO, Luminus, DC Bank, Continental Bank of Canada)
- 2 accounting firms
- 2 government agencies (FINTRAC, OSC)
- 2 non-profit organizations (ATMIA, CFIB)
- 1 unnamed startup company
Please list the top 5 of your most pressing concerns/issues/problems running your business.
These are listed roughly in order of most to least frequent:
BANKING
- General banking
- Barriers to banking
- Bank relationships
- Risk of being de-banked
- Acquiring a bank account
FINTRAC & GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION
- Fintrac compliance - general
- Ability to work with fintrac
- Arbitrariness in fintrac examination policies
- Regulations keep changing, constant updates, keep increasing
- Restrictive policies because of MSB status
- Fintrac rules keep changing
- Not adequate time for compliance regulations
- Fintrac procedure for non-face-to face identification
COMPLIANCE/AML/KYC
- Cost of compliance
- Compliance resources/training
- Particularly training for when regulations change
- Risk assessment (general)
- Getting regulators to understand MSBs
SECURITY
- Internet security
- Being used for fraudulent transactions
RUNNING THE BUSINESS
- Paperwork – too much time on compliance/records – not enough on business
- Technology – competition from new technologies/using technology to be more efficient/which technology to use/etc
- Staffing/finding quality employees
- Client acquisition
OTHER
- Digital currency
- Political situation in Ukraine
Please suggest your top 5 topics for the 2015 CMSBA conference:
These are listed roughly in order of most to least frequent:
FINTRAC & GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION
- Compliance (general, reporting, training, updates to what is required)
- FINTRAC (updates/changes and how to keep up with them)
- Advocacy – how can CMSBA/we have be more vocal with our regulators?
BANKS
- Getting accounts, keeping accounts
- General MSB banking info
BITCOIN
- Bitcoin/cryptocurrency – general, future of bitcoin,
TECHNOLOGY
- New technology/software/systems to use (specifically to help with compliance)
CMSBA
- How the association is helping its members – advocacy committee achievements
MSBs – UNITY/SHARING OF RESOURCES
- Tips for new MSBs
- Testimonials from different MSBs on what helped them – general sharing of information/increasing “community”
CYBERSECURITY
- General
- Fraud/identity theft
AML/KYC
- Transaction monitoring
- Effective risk assessment strategies
Thank you to all of our members for your feedback and for joining us. Looking forward to seeing you all next year!
To view this in a PDF format, please contact info@canadianmsb.org
