Canadian Lawyer InHouse

MARCH 2017 32 INHOUSE launching their product online." Redican calls for partnerships between the federal government and the provinces to create similar initiatives across the complex legal landscape. In many cases, fi ntech fi rms partner with incumbent fi nancial services fi rms because they need either regulatory shelter or mar- ket leverage. "A lot of them are looking at partnering with fi nancial insti- tutions, because banks here have a very good consumer confi dence in- dex, and consumers will look to banks to of- fer their products and services," says Nico- las Faucher, co-president of the corporate/ commercial section at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP in Montreal. This can lead to some cul- tural differences as two players — large, conservative incum- bents and small, hungry disrupters — come to the table. Schisms can emerge between banks and fi ntech teams or be- tween legal and tech teams, each of which has its own agenda. Banks are often slower and more conservative for a reason, points out Osler's Zaman. "As nimble as they would like to be, if you're a large organization, you have some framework restrictions on you. You can't easily change direction or introduce new things from a speed to market or apprecia- tion perspective without fully appreciating the impact of that on other parts of the or- ganization," he says. Conversely, fi ntech startup teams are of- ten more tech-focused, and they frequently don't understand the legal complexities that the banks face, let alone the regulatory ones. This can lead to some friction. "What I often see happening is a fi rst in- teraction where both sides come to the table maybe thinking that the other side doesn't get it," says Donna Parish, vice president deputy general counsel in the Canadian personal and commercial banking legal team at the Bank of Montreal in Toronto. "Another thing I think is being open to failure," she says, citing this as a key differ- ence between fi ntechs and banks. "It may be that the proposed solution isn't necessarily workable, or we might come across one that's better or different in the course of think- ing about it." Teams must be fl exible in how they tackle these complex, evolving business propositions, and it takes strong partnerships between banks and fi ntechs to do that. These cultural challenges stem from an- other diffi culty facing fi ntech fi rms: funding. "A lot of startups don't have the funds to have a team of lawyers or in-house counsel," says Kyle Lavender, an associate at LaBarge Weinstein LLP in Vancouver, the fi rm that counselled Mogo on its public offering. "So you're working with a team of smart indi- viduals who are more focused on tech and fi - nance kinds of things. It takes some patience sometimes on the part of legal counsel." Financial constraints can cripple a fi n- tech's ability to execute on its business plans. POPcode's Aamoth recalls that a partner I n d u s t r y S p o t l i g h t Because business issues are legal issues. So if you want to get ahead in business, get the degree that gets you there faster. ONE YEAR – PART - TIME – NO THESIS FOR L AWYERS AND NON - LAWYERS law.utoronto.ca/ExecutiveLLM GPLLM Global Professional Master of Laws [Get a Master of Laws] Untitled-3 1 2015-03-02 9:02 AM

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