Fintech innovation and Switzerland

It was an honour to be the guest of the Switzerland Innovaton Enterprise and the Swiss Consulate to their Toronto conference. We were talking Fintech and innovation.

Jacoline Loewen

In the past month, the Switzerland Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) opened an office in Geneva, the group announced in a press release. Launched in January 2017 during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the GBBC is a platform bringing together leading businesses and executives from around the world to educate on the latest innovations in blockchain technology and advocate for its widespread adoption. 

It serves as a global forum for information, collaboration and partnerships. Leading full service blockchain technology company The Bitfury Group and international law firm Covington are behind the initiative.

A global center for international cooperation

By locating in Geneva, the GBBC will work side by side with an array of international organizations active in uniting global causes and industries, such as the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). 

Speaking on the decision to house the platform in Geneva, Tomicah Tillemann, GBBC Chairman, explained that the Swiss city has “a long history as a place where people come together to reach consensus”, and that it is “already home to some of the world’s most important and effective international institutions”. 

How to Use Grief to Change the World

A father who lost his three daughters to Middle East violence has turned this tragedy into change for the region. Last night, I was part of The Daughters for Life Gala fund raiser which educates middle eastern girls here in Canada. The belief is that these women will change the region's attitudes to hatred and genders.

Jacoline Loewen, Daughters for Life Gala

What a steep hill Izzeldin Abuelaish has chosen to climb.
Izzeldin says it was the death of his daughters which pushed him to create change. The women at my table agreed that to push on after such a loss due to a bombing, was remarkable.
We then listened to the scholarship winners all in STEM studies at Canadian Universities. These young women travelled to Canada to go through university programs donated by Brock, Trent, Laurier and York. They each made us laugh, cry and understand that maybe, just maybe, this intervention would be a keystone to changing the whole Middle East.
I just know that if one of those girls was my daughter, I would be very proud of her. I also believe that each of these girls will indeed make a big difference.
Then Izzeldin gave Margaret Atwood a Lifetime Achievement award.  Margaret epitomizes what one woman can achieve. Her book The Handmaiden's Tale did inspire me to move beyond my original life goal to be a good wife and to get an MBA and get into the male area of business - finance.
Margaret Atwood's speech was a reminder of how far I personally have journeyed while reading her books all the way.

Daughters for Life Lifetime Award Recipient

When I - at first read Atwood - I did so reluctantly. Atwood was holding up a picture of Canadian society that I did not want to acknowledge. She also showed females in not always a positive light, showing our deepest fears and pain in our relationships. Such disappointments because of our place in society. She really spelt out for me that I needed to change and to take the harder road. I learnt through her novels how women needed to get their own income and it did inspire me to have a good career. Through out most of my adult life, Margaret has inspired me. My book club is currently reading Alias Grace and I look forward to our discussion, but my best book of hers is Oryx and Crake, a Booker Prize winner.
This evening, Margaret reminded us how far Canada has come in its gender roles. She told us that early in her career she was advised to stop her scribbling and find a good husband. She did not stop her scribbling and she did find a good man though - Graham Greene, her partner for decades. I am thankful she did find true love and she shared her views so bravely.

How can you grow your money?

How can you make money?

I suggest that you steal a page from the wealthy.

Business e-Volution, by Jacoline Loewen

The Spectrem Group found business owners account for 6% of seven-figure households — triple that of doctors and lawyers.

Don’t expect to get rich quick; the payoff comes when you sell. There is a great deal of that so-called sweat equity that is not seen or experienced by the average tax payer in Canada.

The median price for a web-design firm last year was $687,500, according to BizBuySell. I write about how to use the Internet to grow your business in my book, Business e-volution.

Construction firms tend to fetch $2.1 million. The bricks and mortor businesses still deliver a good return Not shabby amounts to add to your investment portfolio.

Two demographic trends to keep markets rising

Next week, I am running a breakfast session with our economics strategist and the topic is "Is it Getting Late?"

Jacoline Loewen

This long run is worrying many investors. As we all know, change is constant so what could keep the markets trending upwards?

Here are two demographic developments that I believe are likely to move the markets for decades:

1. Canada’s echo boom

As the ratio of a country’s middle-aged (35- to 49-year-olds) to young (20 to 34) rises, so do stocks, says Brookfield research.
Why? As people age, they start to save more for retirement, which is good for the markets. The Canadian and U.S. M/Y ratio surged in the ’80s, sank in the 2000s, but is expected to turn around next year, thanks to the aging of the millennials.

2. China’s baby boom

Beijing is easing its one-child policy, starting off by allowing parents who are only children themselves to have a second child.
“Think about what that means for demand for infant formula, food, education, and housing,” says David Winters, manager of the Wintergreen Fund.

What do you think? Continue the conversation on Twitter: jacolineloewen

The Wealthy Open Up About Managing Family Expectations

In Wealth Management, I have observed that families with $20M and over are wanting more than portfolio management. They are also wanting guidance in helping the family manage their fortune but alos their family cohesion. That has to come as the result of candid conversations that are, quite frankly, easier to avoid.


Jacoline Loewen

Those unspoken conversations do come back to haunt many and are really are better to have with a skilled facilitator aware of the many roadblocks and bear traps along the way. The following is an example of what can be achieved by tackling the task of the money conversations with family. Read full article here.

In one case, she helped a family patriarch who wanted to open up, by bringing the whole family together for a series of family communications workshops. “This was a dad, he wanted his children to know everything,” she says, but the family members weren’t on the same page. The business founder, his wife, their five kids, and his ex-wife, all came together. Two of the three kids work for the family business. The ex gets alimony funded from the business. Some of them talked “business”--while others felt like they were in the dark. “They were at odds; everybody was trying to find their place,” says Schnaubelt.

First, they identified communications styles and learned how to talk so the others would hear them. Those in the family manufacturing business practiced giving the other family members permission to talk, and the others practiced not letting themselves be pushed over. One outcome: they decided to set up a donor-advised fund at Fidelity Charitable, from which they could make large charitable donations in the family’s name, while each family member could suggest smaller grants from subaccounts. In another workshop, families sort through “Picture Your Legacy” cards to select values and aspirations, and then design a family crest. “It’s a great exercise to bring families together and talk about what’s important,” Markwalter says. Taking a page out of his firm’s playbook, he and his wife Juanita, gathered their five sons—two at home and the others scattered across the country—to give it a try. “I thought they’d think it was corny,” Markwalter says. “What I found was that they were incredibly opinionated in a good way.”

The Markwalters made up a family motto: “Faith, Family, Friends.” and added an actionable tagline: “Do the right thing.” They talked about ambition, and finding work that’s engaging—a work ethic they traced back to ancestors who worked as stone cutters on the Cologne cathedral (hence the stone cutter symbol on the crest). The biggest epiphany, Markwalter found, that he shares with other families hesitant about engaging in these kinds of talks, is that “every single family member has something to offer.”