Having lived in more than a dozen countries for work, Nigerian-born Kingsley Madu was familiar with the process of starting over in a new country, but nothing prepared him for what he had to deal with when he immigrated to Canada in 2019.
“It was the toughest experience ever,” Madu told CBC News.
From the moment Madu and his family landed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, he was faced with financial struggles. While he had money, he didn’t have any credit.
Now, the Kitchener, Ont., resident is helping others by creating the first BIPOC-focused digital banking app in Canada for newcomers with no Canadian credit history. It will help them rent cars, hotel rooms, homes and apartments while building credit.
“We come from regions of the world where there isn’t credit history, but the banking system [in Canada] is asking to see that, and so that is the barrier that does not allow us to gain access to the banking system, to phones, to everything.”
Difficult start
When their plane landed in Canada, Madu said, he couldn’t even book an Uber to drive his family and their luggage to a hotel because he didn’t have a Canadian credit card. Madu ended up paying cash for a limousine.
After arriving at the hotel, he was told that without a credit card, he would have to pay for three nights in advance in order to book a room for one night.
It was the same reason Madu was unable to rent a car and instead had to “walk kilometres to the house where I was hoping to rent.”
When Madu got to the home he was interested in renting, the landlord told him he needed to have at least six months worth of credit history.
“At this point, I’m super frustrated,” he recalled.
Not knowing where to acquire a credit history, Madu went to the bank, only to be told he would need a home address in order to open a bank account.
App gains momentum
The shock of that first experience in his new country is what led Madu to start working on Expedier, although getting started on the digital banking app was “tough to say the least.”
A pivotal turning point came when Madu secured a deal with the Digital Commerce Bank in Calgary.
“That made it a whole lot easier for us to leverage the existing infrastructure and build out,” Madu explained.
As the app gained momentum, Madu brokered an agreement with Equifax that is in its final stages. The partnership will allow Expedier users to establish and build credit, access specialized credit and debit cards and transfer money from other countries into their Expedier accounts.
There are other similar apps, like Mogo, that are available to newcomers to help them manage their finances, but the Equifax deal means Expedier will differ in a major way: by allowing payments like rent and debit card purchases to count toward a person’s credit history, a feature currently being worked out through the federal government by way of a formal banking licence.
“The rent is a horrible loss for us,” said Madu. “It’s a double-edged sword loss. We’re losing money, cash. We’re not building equity. We’re not building credit at the same time.”
Typically rent payments aren’t automatically reported to credit bureaus. You can however sign up for a rent reporting program, like Front Lobby which is offered through the Landlord Credit Bureau, that requires both the landlord and tenant to be involved in the process.
The app’s success story continued with Expedier being selected to participate in the Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders program earlier this year. It also became a part of the Black ecosystem of Liftoff WR, a Waterloo tech incubator run by the Caribbean Canadian Association of Waterloo Region.
LISTEN | Hear the full interview with Expedier creator Kingsley Madu:
The Morning Edition – K-W7:32A new digital bank app is helping remove financial barriers immigrants face when they come to Canada
Moving to a new country is a big undertaking and establishing yourself as a newcomer comes with a variety of barriers. Especially when you have no credit history in a country that relies on credit for everything from renting a house, a car, even a hotel room. That was Kingsley Madu’s experience when he came to Canada four years ago.
Addressing a gap in the system
Madu’s experience immigrating to Canada is a familiar one, said Ana Luz Martinez, settlement program manager at the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre.
“What I hear when somebody wants to rent a place, one of the issues that they are dealing with is the credit score. I mean, they don’t have any credit history here.”
However, Martinez said, there has been a shift in attitude from some banks recently.
“The banks I have seen are more open now to open a bank account for a newcomer. They are actually providing some good offers,” he said, adding that’s likely because “they want to have customers.”
Ana Luz Martinez, settlement programs manager at the KW Multicultural Centre, says she’s heard from newcomers trying to rent a home or apartment that it’s hard to do without a credit history. (kwmulticultural.ca)
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) told CBC News it collaborates with both government and non-government partners in the financial sector to advance newcomers’ financial literacy skills.
A statement from an IRCC spokesperson said the organization recognizes there are some gaps that need to be addressed.
“As part of its regulatory role, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada [FCAC] issued a supervisory bulletin that sets out its expectations on how banks can actively support vulnerable consumers, including newcomers, who want to open an account but face barriers in providing standard identification documents, such as utility bills, a driver’s licence or passport,” the statement said.
The bulletin recognizes that, in certain situations, consumers — including newcomers to Canada — might not have access to the most commonly accepted forms of identification.
It details the FCAC’s expectations for banks regarding the use of non-standard ID by consumers who are facing barriers when accessing banking services.
‘Phenomenal’ feedback
Madu said his app makes it easier for immigrants to ease into the financial landscape and he hopes it helps people start their lives in Canada.
So far, he said, the app has been downloaded more than 10,000 times.
“The feedback has been phenomenal. A lot of people are reaching out saying, ‘Hey, what you’ve built is revolutionary,'” he said.
“Users reach out to us to say, ‘I never knew it would be this tough, but because of Ex [Expedier], it’s a whole lot easier for me. I’m able to pay tuition, I’m able to pay rentals, I’m able to live my life.’ And that’s the kind of feedback that we’re looking for, to validate what we’ve built and to ensure that this system keeps working.”
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
OTTAWA – A Federal Court judge has upheld the government’s decision that far-right media outlet Rebel News doesn’t qualify for journalism tax credits because it doesn’t produce enough original content.
Rebel News applied in May 2021 to be designated as a qualified Canadian journalism organization, but was rejected by the Canada Revenue Agency, which found that less than one per cent of its content was original news.
The outlet sought a judicial review in Federal Court, but in a decision Wednesday, Justice Ann Marie McDonald found the agency’s decision was reasonable.
McDonald’s ruling notes that the revenue agency assessed 423 news reports from Rebel News and found that only 10 were original.
She says the rest were not based on facts and didn’t include multiple perspectives, or were curated content or material rewritten from other sources.
The official designation allows news outlets to claim the Canadian journalism labour tax credit and their subscribers to claim the digital news subscription tax credit.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Lions coach Dan Campbell is selling his suburban Detroit home to get more privacy.
“There’s plenty of space, it’s on two acres, the home is beautiful,” Campbell told Crain’s Detroit Business. “It’s just that people figured out where we lived when we lost.”
He didn’t elaborate.
Campbell and wife Holly listed the 7,800-square-foot house in Bloomfield Hills for $4.5 million this week. A deal was pending within 24 hours, Crain’s reported.
Campbell was hired by the Lions in 2021. After a 3-13-1 record that season, the team has become one of the best in the NFL, reaching the NFC championship game last January.
Campbell’s home was built in 2013 for Igor Larionov, a Hockey Hall of Fame member who played for the Detroit Red Wings.
The likely buyers are “huge” Lions fans, said Ashley Crain, who is representing Campbell and the buyers in the sale.
Ariella Kimmel and Mandi Johnson were grabbing a bite to eat in Vienna, when their August trip to the Austrian capital was upended.
The Canadian duo had travelled to the city to see Taylor Swift in concert only to learn her shows would be cancelled because of two men plotting to launch an attack on fans outside the venue, Ernst Happel Stadium.
While Kimmel and Johnson were disappointed they weren’t going to be able to see Swift perform, they made the most of the remainder of their trip. However, the experience serves as a buyer’s beware for Canadians considering jet setting to see their favourite artists or teams.
“If you’re travelling to these concerts, it’s really hard to protect yourself,” said Kimmel, a Toronto-based vice-president at a public affairs firm who had previously travelled with Johnson to see Swift in Las Vegas, Nashville and Stockholm.
Such trips can make lifelong memories when they go off without a hitch, but cancellations and rescheduled events are common because of artist illnesses, poor ticket sales, security threats, unruly weather and natural disasters.
In the last year alone, Jennifer Lopez and the Black Keys scuttled touring plans after tickets had been sold, while Bruce Springsteen, Usher and Pink had to tell fans they couldn’t take the stage mere hoursbefore show time.
Between airfares, hotels, travel expenses and tickets, last-minute cancellations can leave globe-trotting eventgoers out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.
“Regrettably, unpredictability has always been a reality of the industry but it’s increasingly common that there might be things that are going to interrupt your plans, especially plans that you’re really excited about,” said Jenny Kost, the Calgary-based global director of strategic sales initiatives at Corporate Traveller Canada.
“It’s a tricky one because the airline or hotel understands the reason behind your travel but its likelihood of happening or not happening is a little bit outside of their purview.”
Because Swift is known to power through shows even when sick, Kimmel never imagined a concert she was headed to would ever be cancelled, but she always booked plane tickets and hotels that could be rescheduled or refunded — a move she recommends to others travelling for events.
“It’s like common sense, you never know what’s going to happen,” Kimmel said.
However, making use of the rescheduling and refund options her hotel booking and airline tickets had weren’t an option for Kimmel this time because she had already been in Austria for a few days and had very little of her stay left when Swift cancelled.
Had the show been nixed before Kimmel left home, the flexibility baked into the bookings would have been useful, though Kost said such arrangements aren’t cheap.
“There is a cost associated with that that’s not insignificant,” she warned, estimating these kinds of bookings can add hundreds of dollars to your bill and have lots of quirks in the fine print.
The better bet is travel insurance, Kost said. It’s often cheaper than flexible fares and hotel bookings and can reimburse customers for accommodations and flights they have to drop or swap when an event gets cancel or an emergency strikes.
Kost opted for such insurance when she journeyed to Paris to see Swift over the summer and bought it again in a cab on her way to Mexico for a wedding. The insurance cost her about $150 for a week, but when she had to extend her stay because she fell ill, it covered the cost of all of her accommodations.
She doesn’t encourage people to wait until the last minute to buy the insurance like she did because buying it early can provide some reprieve when an event you’re travelling to is cancelled well in advance.
Travel costs aside, people heading out-of-town for events that wind up cancelled also have to consider whether they will get the money they spent on entry fees and tickets back.
In Kimmel and Johnson’s case, they paid Ticketmaster about $300 per seat. They learned just after the cancellation that they would be refunded — but not for an $85 transaction fee they were charged when purchasing the tickets.
“We paid $85 to not see her but I guess that in the grand scheme of what we were going to pay, it’s not a lot at all,” Kimmel said.
They did not opt to buy insurance on their tickets, which Ticketmaster offers through Allianz Global Assistance for $8, plus tax. Allianz’s vice-president of marketing and insights Dan Keon said the insurance offers coverage up to $1,000 per ticket.
In addition to offering refunds if an event is cancelled by a venue or promoter, the coverage can provide a reimbursement for a variety of situations. Those include if you are facing a serious medical issue or death, have a family member in life-threatening condition, are summoned by the military or are delayed in arriving at the venue because of a common transportation carrier.
If you’re going to opt into the insurance, Keon said review the terms ahead of time, so you understand exactly what scenarios you will be covered in.
The insurance, for example, can’t be used in the event of a pandemic, war or natural disaster.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
