Financial technology is going to revolutionize the banking industry,” Lawyer Christine Duhaime told the Georgia Straight over coffee in downtown Vancouver. “It’s really important to encourage women to be involved in tech, and then fintech especially—we’re 50 percent of the equation—so that we’re not left out at the table in terms of where that technology goes, what the future looks like…It’s a snapshot of what the industry is like at the moment for women and what the future might look like.”
Duhaime is cofounder and executive director of the Digital Finance Institute, which is set to hold its inaugural Digital Finance Conference in Vancouver on June 3. During what is likely Canada’s first financial technology conference, according to Duhaime, the DFI, Innotribe, and Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group will release a ground-breaking white paper on “power women in fintech.” (Financial inclusion is the focus of one of the DFI’s three initiatives; the others involve innovation and transparency.) The white paper will profile 15 female leaders in the industry. Duhaime noted the paper will also cover the positive and negative aspects, for women, of working in fintech.