Over the course of the pandemic our behavior changed drastically. We worked online, shopped online, socialized online, watched The Queen’s Gambit online. We were fortunate to have these technological workarounds, but all this digital activity came with consequences—including a massive rise in cybercrime. According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, Canadians reported 70,878 instances of digital fraud in 2022 alone, resulting in losses of $530 million. 2021 was bad—2022 was 40 per cent worse.

Cybercrime affects all industries but the financial sector is a frequent target, partly because of well… the money, but also because these companies house a significant amount of valuable personal data. Financial attacks and breaches can take the form of identity theft and money laundering or ransomware attacks and phishing attempts—and it’s fairly common knowledge these attacks are becoming more sophisticated and coordinated. Less well-known, however, is the fact that within Atlantic Canada’s burgeoning fintech sector, many of these young companies are prepared to meet these threats head-on.

We are going on a trajectory that will impact the economics of the [Atlantic] provinces in a very high percent. This industry can really impact the economics of the four provinces because they’re really one region.

—Alicia Roisman Ismach

There were already plenty of fintech companies in Atlantic Canada when serial entrepreneur Alicia Roisman Ismach moved to Moncton from Israel, bringing a wealth of expertise and international connections with her. One of Roisman Ismach’s most notable accomplishments is Seergate, which she co-founded in 2006 with Eldad Aharoni. Seergate’s technology combined elements of fintech and cybersecurity to solve an infrastructure challenge related to electronic payments: it allowed banks to track and reflect transactions in real-time.

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