This morning at the 2019 Canada FinTech Forum, the creation of the AMF-Finance Montréal Research Chair was announced. The Chair will be dedicated to building knowledge for the benefit of stakeholders in Québec’s fintech ecosystem (clients, organizations, employees), training highly qualified personnel, and informing and educating the general public about key fintech issues. Each of the two organizations if contributing a million over 5 years to fund this research.

“The AMF is an active member of the fintech community, and this support, in addition to strengthening our existing ties, confirms our intention to participate in the development of knowledge in a rapidly changing sector. The impacts of fintech on the financial services industry and on the regulatory environment are considerable and affect us directly. It is even more important that all active researchers in the field are able to contribute, regardless of the university with which they are affiliated,” says Louis Morisset, President and CEO of the AMF.

The holder of the Chair, Professor Richard Guay of ESG UQAM, will head the Chair’s scientific and executive committees. This governance structure is aimed at ensuring that funding is distributed fairly among Québec universities and research centres, encouraging the adoption of an inter-university approach and promoting the participation of all researchers in the field.

The Chair’s activities will focus on various research areas, targeting current issues such as the impact of the fintech ecosystem on the financial sector; the impact of technological innovations on client and employee experiences; the regulatory approaches and legal questions raised by fintech with regard to protecting investors and the integrity of markets regulated by the AMF; and innovations likely to influence financial operations processes in a context of an exponential increase in computational power and big data.