One of the victims of moving to a more cashless society in the past has been charitable organizations that rely on people’s generosity during in-person donation opportunities. There are many people who simply just don’t like carrying cash with them.
One of the victims of moving to a more cashless society in the past has been charitable organizations that rely on people’s generosity during in-person donation opportunities. There are many people who simply just don’t like carrying cash with them.
For the past few years, we’ve been following the progress of Canadian startup tiptap as they’ve grown from a conversation-starting curiosity, to a fixture on many national charitable campaigns, and not-for-profit institutions.
Al has a sit-down with tiptap Director of Sales Mark Jordan to talk about a couple of these national campaigns The Poppy Campaign and The Red Kettle Campaign to learn how tip tap has helped them bridge the cashless gap.
Also in this episode:
Links of Interest:
Allan: [00:00:00] November always feels like a transitional month, transitioning from jacket to coat, from thanking to remembering, from harvest to holiday, from getting, as in candy, to giving. And speaking of giving, according to the 2024 giving report, the number of Canadians making charitable donations has declined for the 11th straight year.
And to compound the issue, the number of people seeking help from charities has soared. One in five Canadians are using charitable services to meet essential needs. It's a bleak picture. But in some cases, there is hope, and that's where I'd like to focus this month. There are two major charitable campaigns to kick off this month, the Poppy campaign and the Red Kettle campaign.
We're going to learn about what they're doing to increase in person giving in a time when fewer people are carrying cash. And in the process, we're going to catch up with one of our partners. Why? Because. It's just good business.
Happy November, everyone. Al here. I've got a great episode for you this month. A couple of years back, I had a great chat with Mark [00:01:00] Jordan from a cool new startup called TipTap. They were going to revolutionize the in person giving space, and they did just that. Well, this month I catch up with Mark again to see how they're doing.
Spoiler alert, they're doing amazingly, but don't take it from me. We'll hear from Mark himself. It's a great conversation. In the second half of our episode, I'll be joined by Neal Isaac from ATB. Neal is our expert on open banking. He's going to explain to us what open banking is and how the Canadian government is working with Canadian financial institutions, including ATB, to shape the future of banking in this country so that it's more consumer driven.
There's a lot of important information in this segment. You're not going to want to miss it. And finally, our resident data expert, Sean McCormick joins us and we're talking about the busiest holiday shopping day, and you may be surprised to find out which day it isn't. So stay tuned, but first here's my chat with Mark Jordan from tip tap.
I'm joined by Mark Jordan. He's the director of sales at tiptap. Mark, thank you so much for joining me again.
Mark: Thanks so much for the invitation.
Allan: Now I can't believe it's been two [00:02:00] years since I first had you on. And back then tiptap was sort of a new company. So for those who may not know what your company does, could you explain it?
Yeah, absolutely. In a nutshell, we are a standalone in person donation collection solution. So we allow people very quickly, very easily with their physical card. Credit card or interact card or their mobile wallet to make a donation simply by tapping on a fixed denomination device. And that's kind of our core proposition.
Yeah. I mean, if you haven't heard the name, you've probably seen those white squares and there'll be everywhere. There'll be, you know, for donations, there'll be anywhere where you can quickly tap and it's a fixed amount. I was in a Newfoundland a couple of summers back now, uh, visiting the Basilica there.
And there were a couple of tiptap devices there where I could donate because I didn't have any cash and who carries cash anymore, but I wanted to donate for the church and it was as easy as tapping my credit card and I was able to give a quick five or [00:03:00] 10 donation. I don't even remember what it was now.
Mark: Well, when we last spoke, we may have been in the hundred or a couple of hundred customer territory. We just crossed. We're into over 3000 customers now across all of North America. So while we started in Canada. We're seeing more and more growth in Canada and definitely in the U. S.
Allan: And it's been so much fun to watch you guys grow from that startup to now.
I mean, you're the real deal. Do you have any competition?
Mark: We always get asked, you know, who is our closest competition and, and truly what we do is unique. And we've been told that by our competition, in the sense that no one else is doing fixed denomination. No one else is focusing exclusively on the nonprofit and charity space, which we are doing.
Uh, so we're very unique in that respect as compared to other call it traditional payment solutions.
Allan: Sure. And I mean, I love it because yes, you primarily for nonprofit and for donations, but it's not just for that. I mean, I'm a musician and if I was out busking or something, you know, I could have a tip hat [00:04:00] out, but I could also have a tip tap device.
Cause again, who carries cash anymore? Like very few people do. So I feel bad for buskers and for street performers who, you know, Are doing what they can for donations, but because people don't carry cash anymore, they're just not there.
Mark: Yeah. And that's the other space that we play in, which is tipping, you know, our mission simply put is to unlock the natural human propensity to give as defined by donations and tips.
So we like to think that everyone has it in them to give. It's about making it easy. It's about making it frictionless. It's being in the places that they are and allowing them to give a tip in the way that they want to in that moment.
Allan: I was just in Winnipeg recording stories for the Yes, We Are Open podcast.
And I had a day or an afternoon where I could play tours. So I actually did a river tour of the Assiniboine River. And the tour guide was amazing. He had lots of, lots of say, told great stories. And then when we got back to the drop off, he had a tip jar. And I'm [00:05:00] like, you did such a great job. I want to give you a tip. I have no cash. If only you had a tip tap badge or what do you call them? A receptacle?
Mark: Devices. Some people call them puck, right? And people call them terminals, uh, or tip tap square tip tap device.
Allan: Now you're on today because you know, it's, it's November and the holiday season's coming up, but there's a couple of big campaigns that tip taps involved in, both of them are actually nationally known and very famous.
We'll start with the poppy campaign. Once again, We talk about who carries cash anymore, but this, you know, the poppy campaign, it's a staple for Remembrance Day. I go to the train, there's a vet there holding the box with the poppies and I'll run back to my car and grab like change out of my, you know, what used to be the ashtray to buy a poppy. But it's getting more and more difficult to fish out any kind of change or cash. So I love that TipTaps helping with the poppy campaign.
Mark: Yeah. We're excited once again to be a part of the poppy campaign. This is our fourth year that we've been involved, uh, enabling poppy [00:06:00] boxes across the country. And in many respects, you know, we're just getting started, you know, thanks to a generous partner, RBC, who sponsors the pay tribute portion of the Legion poppy campaign, which is the portion that we enable, we've got about a thousand boxes across the country as well as devices now in some RBC branches.
You know, there's, there's many, many other locations and other opportunities to continue to enable that program. We found, you know, our, if you've never seen one of our poppy boxes in the wild, so to speak, we've got a $2, a $5 and a $10 device in the box. So, again, where you might've been fishing for loose change, even if you could find that change, you might be dropping, you know, a dollar or maybe 50 cents into the, the box.
Now your minimum donation is $2 if you're tapping. So. The Legion is seeing that, uh, revenue and seeing those collections increase as a result. In fact, early days, interestingly, the program this year [00:07:00] launched on Friday, as it always does the last Friday of October officially, and already 25 percent up.
Over the last year, this is where we were at this time last year. Yeah. And I think a lot of that is due to a few things. There's an extreme comfort that consumers, individuals are having around contactless payments in general. We like to think in Canada, we've reached the saturation point. There still is upside, even within our contactless behaviors.
And then also just extreme comfort and familiarity with seeing the tip taps in the market. You know, you mentioned earlier, you're starting to see them everywhere. So, you know, people will associate them with the poppy box. They'll see them in the community raising for other things. And they now just associate, Oh, there's a tip tap. I can make a donation using that.
Allan: It's great. I love it. And again, because it's so not for profit and charity focused. Now the other big campaign that's going to kick off in, I guess, in December. Would be the Salvation Army campaign
Mark: actually launches officially mid November, okay, right after the poppy campaign ends, right? They usually don't do anything [00:08:00] until November 12th at the earliest and most are going out mid November So yeah this year again, we are you know, I think there's 1800 or so kettles across the country to the point where now people are actually Surprised if they don't see a kettle That is tip tap enabled and the bell ringers themselves actually are asking internally if they're assigned to a kettle that doesn't have tiptap, can I please get assigned to a tiptap kettle because they know the conversation they're going to be having right? Sorry, I don't have any cash on me. And you mentioned, you know, how we, we replace cash. Truly what organizations are now starting to see is it's not about replacing that last cash, but really It's amplifying and collecting a greater amount than they would have had they not had a solution like TipTap in place. That's really what we're seeing. So again, last year, the Salvation Army with no additional devices year over year added, we're getting 25 percent up with their kettle donations related to TipTap specifically.
Allan: Those are great [00:09:00] numbers and good to see in a good cause, especially nowadays, I think we need that more than ever, right?
Now, in terms of, we kind of talked about some of the applications, obviously these charity campaigns and tipping and stuff, has there been any surprising use cases that maybe you guys weren't thinking of that? There's a segment that's growing.
Mark: Well, it's maybe not a surprise, but it might be a surprise to those that don't know how the device operates or what it can do.
We're seeing more and more organizations use it to actually activate experiences. So the device itself. It takes a transaction, takes a donation, but it can also trigger a screen, for example, in a hospital on a giving wall to then play a thank you video or a video of a patient you might've helped or in a museum setting, you know, you might make that donation and then suddenly there's an experience that comes to life because you're able to trigger that experience through the tap.
And our business is being driven more and more by those verticals, museums, healthcare, healthcare. Faith [00:10:00] based giving are sort of three pillars for us right now. Those environments tend to be always on. So an organization putting an investment into building an installation or building a screen set up, we're seeing that more and more, which is maybe not surprising, but just it's interesting that it's taken off as much as it has.
Allan: Right. I think you shared a video with me earlier this month about it. Was it a hospital in B. C. where it was the giving wall or something where somebody made a donation with one of your devices? It triggered a video, basically thanking the person and showing them where their money was going to.
Mark: That's right. That's exactly right. So it's again, that moment of empathy, someone's willing to tap. It just reinforces that moment, right? With a thank you, a personalized thank you from a patient or from someone at the hospital. It just all works together.
Allan: And I mean, I think it's important to note that in order to take advantage of these devices, you have to be a large company or even small businesses can use these really easy and real quick to implement.
Mark: Yeah. And again, we don't traditionally operate as a true point of sale in the sense of [00:11:00] paying for something. Uh, and that said, what you, what you just said is a hundred percent true. You know, we work with large organizations, the scale of, you know, the Legion and Salvation Army Canada in Canada. We also work with hundreds of small to medium charities, uh, and other organizations.
So we definitely are a solution that works for any scale. Really. It's about at the end of the day. We offer a technology solution, right? That makes it as fast to donate as cash, or in some cases, even faster. Yeah. I think about it, you know, stumbling through your pocket or you use the example of going to your car and fishing for now you're literally tapping with your phone probably as people are using mobile and you're done, you're moving on.
It's even faster than cash. So many organizations can benefit from that. It's about how they integrate that into their fundraising at the end of the day. Right, because we provide the technology solution, they provide the strategy and thinking and the knowledge of their donor base and how this would best come to life for them.
Allan: So, you've done a lot of great [00:12:00] things already in the charitable space. What's next for TipTot? Like, where can you take this?
Mark: Our device started as that. Standalone, fixed denomination in the moment that isn't going away. In fact, we've been told multiple times that that is totally unique. No one else is doing that.
Where we are looking to go is really extending that or expanding that out into think about a device as almost an on ramp into the digital world. And we're working on initiatives and solutions that will enable that. So really our goal is to be where the donor is always activated by in person. We are an in person solution, but you can imagine in the future, a device that might allow you to actually create that on ramp from that in person interaction into more of now a digital relationship with that individual and ongoing donation relationship.
So that's where we're taking the solution. That's where we're moving the solution to. And it's. Not about replacing what we do today, but really, again, augmenting, enhancing, and ultimately trying to be in as many [00:13:00] places that our donors or organizations donors want to be and want to give.
Allan: Well, if you're not innovating, you're standing still, right? So, like you said, I think there's still so much room to grow, and I'm sure people are going to come up with even bigger and better ideas on how they can use this. If somebody wanted to learn more about TipTap and how they can make use of this device, where would they go?
Mark: So you can find us online. Our website is tiptappay, that's all one word, tiptappay.com. They're also welcome to reach out directly to me if they want to follow up with any specific questions. And my email is mark, M A R K, at tiptappay. com.
Allan: Again, Mark, I've loved watching the progress of TipTap since that first interview we had two years ago to where you are now, and I'll keep on watching, and I promise you I won't wait two years to have you back. Ha ha, would love that, would love that update. Okay, and I'll include links to your website and your email address if you want in the show notes, so for anyone who wants to get in touch with Mark, he's a good hang, so uh, yeah. He'll be able to help you out in [00:14:00] any way you need. Mark, thank you again for your time today.
Thank you so much again for the opportunity, Al.
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I'm joined by Neal Isaac. He's a managing director of open banking and payments at ATB. Neal, thank you so much for joining me today.
Neal: Thanks, Alan. Great to be here.
Allan: Now, Neal, for those who may not know, what is it that you do in a nutshell?
Neal: So ATB is an Alberta Crown Corp. We were founded in the thirties to ensure a competitive option for Albertans. We're headquartered in Edmonton. ATB financial has over 5, 000 employees and over 60 billion in assets.
Allan: The topic we're talking about this month is open banking. What exactly is open banking?
Neal: Open banking is a global concept to enable [00:15:00] consumers to share their financial information securely. It creates and mandates for the banks a structure to enable secure information sharing. It establishes the liability expectations to support that to ensure that the consumer is protected and Canada is on a path to implement this as consumer driven banking.
Allan: Can you provide some examples of open banking?
Neal: One of the things that is probably most prevalent and useful to small business is the ability to share data with accounting systems, with accountants, with bookkeepers, and advisors.
This happens today via credential sharing, which isn't the best way of doing that. Open banking promises to bring a way of doing that using secure data exchange. And that's where we'll see a lot of the innovation start in the ecosystem.
Allan: So I'm thinking, for example, you know, when you're working with an accountant or a bookkeeper. You have to share certain [00:16:00] information with them if you're a business, but you don't want to share all your information or any information that shouldn't be shared with them, or you want to be able to manage that information beyond the point where they need it. They don't, you can unshare it with them.
Neal: Exactly. So open banking promises to give a granular way of sharing information. So essentially being able to turn on and off different accounts. And revoke that access. So essentially, if you change your mind or change a business relationship with somebody. You can then go in, you have the control of turning off that access.
Allan: We chatted in the past and you were kind of mentioning how this is already happening in other parts of the world and Canada is only starting to catch up. Can you provide some examples of where this is happening and how it's working?
Neal: There's a number of different ways this has been rolled out. The UK and Europe have rolled this out really around providing rights to the consumer on their financial data.
Brazil and Africa have tied it more to their payment system. So [00:17:00] definitely it still has an element of data sharing, but it really is going farther to support a new way of doing payments and payments modernization in those countries.
And then finally, Australia, who's seen as a leader. is moving it forward to enable utilities and bill payments and those types of things. So you see different ways that it is evolving in those different countries. And like I said, Canada and the U. S. are just implementing their regulated systems.
Allan: What has to change in Canada for this to start happening?
Neal: Essentially, the government will first change the legislation. What that does, it essentially removes the need for bilateral data sharing agreements. One of the key problems today It's that everybody that shares data needs some sort of liability agreement in place. So that removes that. Secondly, we would need a system of accreditation. So essentially the standards in the [00:18:00] system that everybody would participate in. And that's what the government is working on right now, is essentially creating the framework for how that will run.
Allan: So that everyone's speaking the same language, asking for the same type of data. And also knowing which data they can ask for, or isn't allowed to ask for.
Neal: Exactly. So it would set up the rules for the system, the standards, so that everybody is treating the data the right way. And that there's a system to protect consumers in place.
Allan: Is ATB part of this helping the government write this legislation?
Neal: I wouldn't say that we're helping them write the legislation, just like all the other financial institutions we're being consulted, we're active in our discussions around what we would like to see, and we're working behind the scenes to be ready when it's available to be able to participate.
Allan: What's that timeframe look like?
Neal: Right now, we expect that this fall, we'll see the second part of the legislation, that legislation would then move us into the actual [00:19:00] regulations, the standards, the certification, which would unfold hopefully over the next year, and we would see the start of a system the year after that.
Allan: So there's still a little bit of work to be done, but hopefully in a couple of years, we should have a new framework and then innovation can start then.
Neal: Yeah. And I think there's a lot of innovation already started, Alan. Definitely there'd be a lot of fintechs in Canada that would feel this is long overdue and even ATB, we try to be on the forefront of innovation and we would like to see this come to fruition so that we can start to offer different services, more competitive options. And advance the marketplace in a more digital friendly way.
Allan: An interesting thing that you brought up last week, and I think it's probably important to remind folks who are listening here is this is trying to make it more customer centric or client centric. It's putting the data in the hands of the clients and not of the banks or the government. It's allowing you to control your data.
Neal: Consumer driven was [00:20:00] a purposeful change of the name over open banking. The reality is, although this is attempting to open up financial data, it's far from an open system. And it really doubles down on the fact that the consumer must be in control of their data and enables those controls for the consumer. And then brings those security best practices to the forefront so that everybody is using the highest security available and that we're promoting the best security practices around that data sharing.
Allan: It sounds promising and it sounds like it's well overdue, especially in this country. If folks wanted to learn more about ATB and what you offer for your clients, where can they go?
Neal: Well, ATB. com always has the most up to date information about our current products and services. www. atb. com For the listeners out there, I'd say there's lots of emerging opportunities to join in conversations around the future of banking in Canada. Some of the groups where these types of topics are discussed [00:21:00] are OFNC, Fintech Canada, And the chamber of commerce, just to note some prominent examples.
Allan: I will post links to that in the show notes for anyone who's interested in checking that out. Folks want to be part of, or at least follow along with the legislative process that's happening right now. Where can they go?
Neal: Yeah, that's a good question, Alan. The government of Canada is quite transparent on their progress around this and really in explaining the why and the what right on the Canada. ca website. If people look for Canada's consumer driven banking framework, there's quite a good website from budget 2024. And I would expect some new updates soon as the new legislation is announced.
Allan: Perfect. And I'll include that link in the show note as well. So you can see it from both sides. From the government side and also from all the financial institutions, we're trying to help them. Shape this legislation. That's going to hopefully shape the future of banking in this country moving forward.
Neal, what do you hope to see the future of open banking in Canada?
Neal: What we would hope [00:22:00] to see in Canada is the legislation moves through to regulation, certification, and a system sooner than later to then see it play a key piece of the puzzle or technology advancement around the modernization of payments and banking.
Allan: That's so well put and hopefully it happens sooner rather than later.
Neal: Absolutely.
Allan: Neal, thank you so much for your time today.
Neal: Thanks Alan. Great to be here.
Allan: I'm joined by Sean McCormick, he's the VP of business development at Moneris Data Services. Sean, thank you once again for joining me today.
Sean: Thanks, Al.
Allan: We're in November. And as of, you know, Remembrance Day, we're talking about the holiday shopping season. And you're here today to talk about the busiest shopping days. You know, historically, if you ask your layman person, they might say, Oh, of course it's Black Friday. But historically, has that been the case?
Sean: So remember back when we were kids, Al, you know, like, 10, 15 years ago, the busiest shopping day of the year was Boxing Day. Remember when that was a big thing?
Allan: Oh man, that seems too long ago. [00:23:00] Yeah,
Sean: I know. Now like boxing day barely registers as an event, but black Friday has definitely become the new boxing day. However, black Friday was. The busiest shopping day of the season in actually the year in 2020 and 2021. However, in 2022 and 2023, it was the days leading up to Christmas in 2022. It was the Thursday before Christmas. And in 2023, it was the Friday before Christmas.
Allan: Interesting.
Sean: So why is that? You might ask. Well, Christmas was on a Sunday in 2022 and a Monday in 2023.
Clip: Okay.
Sean: So think about that as it relates to like timing. You're like three, four days before Christmas. You might have a couple of gifts and you're like, Oh my God, Christmas is four days away. I gotta get out. So the general takeaway there. Is it's the proximity to the actual date of Christmas, not necessarily the day of the week or the shopping event, right? So [00:24:00] what could retailers expect this year? Christmas is on a Wednesday this year. Okay. So if I'm a betting man, and I've been known to place a wager from time to time legally, of course, I would say maybe the Saturday might be a big one this year. The Saturday before Christmas when it ends on a Wednesday. But anyway, long would it answer your question? The last two years, it's been a couple of days before Christmas. Right. Prior to that, it was on Black Friday in 2020 and 2021.
Allan: Now, could it also just be that the. The Black Friday deals haven't been there the last couple of years, maybe because of inflation or something.
Sean: Yeah. Hey, I think there's something to that. I mean, it's hard to quantify, right? Like, have the deals been there or not? Your personal experience is the same as my personal experience. And I remember. On Black Friday last year, my inbox is getting pounded with all of these emails from merchants. I didn't even know I signed up for it, but I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. I'll click on that one. And then it's like 15 percent off, 10 percent off, 5 percent off. And it just wasn't worth my time. So I actually did no shopping on Black Friday last [00:25:00] year because they're just, the deals weren't there.
Allan: Yeah. I feel like I had the same thing happen to me now. Over the last few months during this segment, we've been tracking the economic story in Canada and how it's being tied to the interest rates. And I think we've just had our second or third straight interest rate decrease and the last few months, we've kind of painted a bit of a dire story in terms of the Canadian economy. Are things improving? Are we seeing any improvement yet?
Sean: I'd like to say yes, Al, but that's just what I'd like to say. We're not seeing it yet. No. And the beauty of our data is that it's so fresh. It's up to a week old, right? There's no other consumer spending data source out there that is as current as ours.
Allan: Yeah.
Sean: And we're just not seeing it yet. This Christmas, we'll tell a very interesting story. I mean, inflation has backed off.
Allan: Yep.
Sean: That's what we see in the news. It's what we see in our data. And it seems like that's what I'm seeing when I go out and spend money as a consumer. I'm not shocked when I open up a menu at a restaurant anymore. Now, the prices [00:26:00] haven't gone down. Appetizers are still $21, but they're not $25. So that trend seems to have subsided.
But the growth I've got access to order of the quarter data like Q3, which we just finished up all 30 days ago. So Q3 of 2024 for retail versus Q3 of 2023 for retail. A lot of regional variances there. So Ontario is having a tough time. It's plain and simple. Like there's no sugarcoating it. Year over year, Ontario in September and retail was down 9% versus the year before that's total volume of dollars being pumped through the Moneris' pipes. And by the way, that's using same story methodology, right? So we're not counting new merchants that just joined us or merchants that have left us or gone into business or whatever. That same story methodology there. So down 9 percent year over year. Yeah. That's not good.
Now, on the flip side, like Quebec seems to be doing a lot better. In July, it was up 12 percent year over [00:27:00] year. In August, Quebec retail was up 10 percent year over year. September dropped off almost flat at 3%. So definitely some regional variances there.
Overall, the overall number looking at September for Canada year over year was off 3 percent and that's substantial. Yeah, again, there's no way to make that look good because yeah, it's just it's off 3%. So the holiday season is going to tell a very interesting story this year.
Allan: It'll be interesting and I look forward to hearing what it has to say next time we have you on. Thank you so much for your time today, Sean,
Sean: you bet.
Allan: And that's all we have time for this month. I hope you found it informative. I know I did. And now before I sign off, I'll post links to everything we talked about in this podcast in the show notes. If you're listening right now and you have any questions about anything business related, you can email us at podcast@moneris.Com and we'll try to answer them in future episodes.
On behalf of Mark, Neal, Sean, myself, and the rest of Moneris, it's just good business saying thank you for listening. See you in December.