Day 4 — How Canadians Pay: 20 Years of Credit-Card Evolution Credit cards are quietly reshaping how Canadians spend, borrow, and build loyalty. Over the last two decades, five major trends have defined the country’s payment landscape: 1. Contactless & Mobile Payments 2. Rewards & Co-branded Cards 3. Market Share Concentration 4. Fintech Disruption 5. Regulation & Policy Shifts Here’s what’s changed — and why it matters. Contactless & Digital Wallets Remember when you had to insert your chip and wait? In 2015, only ~40% of Canadians used contactless payments regularly. By 2024, that number is over 90% . Nearly every in-store transaction — and two-thirds of online purchases — now runs through cards. [1] Mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay accelerated this shift, merging convenience with data-rich, loyalty-driven ecosystems. Insight: Payment friction is gone. The new competition isn’t about acceptance — it’s about data, personalization, a...

5 Things North American Firms Must Know About The EU AI Act In August 2024, the European Union officially brought the EU AI Act into effect. Although it’s a European regulation, its reach extends far beyond Brussels — and many North American tech firms are already feeling the consequences. Here’s what business leaders should know — and how to act. Why It Matters (Even Outside the EU) The EU AI Act has extraterritorial scope : any company that markets, deploys, or uses AI systems whose outputs are used within the EU can fall under its rules. [1] Canadian firms exporting AI-enabled products or embedding AI modules in tools used by European clients must assess compliance now. [2] The “Brussels Effect” suggests that many non-EU firms will end up aligning with EU standards to simplify compliance across multiple jurisdictions. [3] What the Regulation Says AI systems are classified by risk levels — from “minimal” to “high risk” and “unacceptable.” The higher the risk, t...

  Day 2 of 30 Days, 30 Cases — Policy Meets Technology: Speed Cameras What happens when a city installs speed cameras—and then considers removing them? Ontario’s pause on automated speed enforcement (ASE) in Vaughan shows how policy and technology intersect. Data clearly shows speed cameras reduce speeding by around 50% and cut average speeds by nearly a quarter . Local Success: As per the City of Toronto's Automated Speed Enforcement Program Evaluation Report 2023, "the proportion of drivers speeding in 30, 40, and 50 km/h speed zones respectively dropped from 59.8%, 51.7%, and 58.4% pre-intervention to 43.3%, 29.2%, and 35.7% when the ASE devices were operational". Minimize image Edit image Delete image Excessive speeding (>20 km/h over) dropped ~87% 85th percentile speed fell by 6–8 km/h across most zones Over 80% of camera locations saw lower average speeds Global Success: UK Fixed Cameras: Speeding fell 71% , road deaths & serious injuries down ~40% Practica...

[30 days, 30 Problems - In this series of one posting a day, I will investigate the economic impacts that unfold when policy meets technology.] When policy meets technology without oversight, the consequences can be both reputational and financial. Deloitte’s partial refund to the Australian government after it was revealed that parts of a $440,000 report were generated by AI serves as a cautionary case for organizations using generative tools in high-stakes policy analysis. When in  July 2025,  Deloitte delivered a report evaluating a welfare compliance IT system was for the Australian Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), it was  found to include AI-generated text containing fabricated citations and factual inaccuracies . After an internal investigation, Deloitte agreed to refund a portion of the $440,000 contract value , acknowledging the inappropriate and undisclosed use of OpenAI’s GPT-4 model through Microsoft’s Azure platform. The Guardian rep...

I was convinced I was a left-brained person until I started gaining notice of my visual, creative, and intuitive side too At the age of 8, I discovered my love for writing , and it has been a passion that I have pursued throughout my life. From writing poems and opinion pieces for university magazines to authoring market intelligence and consulting/data reports for Gartner and Mordor Intelligence, my writing skills have always gained notice and has been a valuable asset in my career. In my late teens, I realized that I also had a knack for Mathematics and Statistics , when I was consistently scoring straight A's in all the disciplines most of my peers would dread. Little did I know back then, that this would help me when I would later go on in my job presenting complex data findings to stakeholders, building models from scratch, or cracking otherwise nerve-racking guesstimate interviews. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis hitting the stock markets , I also got fascinat...

"Can you go halfway around the world, and live in a cold city with freezing winters? Can you leave your friends and family? Wouldn't you be lonely?" -Jumpa Lahiri, The Namesake This is the exact question I asked myself, as I saw my invitation letter from the Government of Canada with the following words: "We are pleased to invite you to apply for permanent residence under the Federal Skilled Workers". This is a highly competitive score-based  immigration system for experienced professionals valued internationally for Canada's  social benefits, healthcare, education, and a high quality of life. I usually never second-guess, but in that moment, the prospect of quitting a well-paying reseach & consulting job in India and the proximity to my people to start life from square one barely held any appeal.  More so, because I love India.  The love, the education, the principles, the family values, the work diligence, the peace-loving outlook, the  experiences, ...

This will change the way we work   forever! Microsoft has introduced Copilot which will be embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps and is more than OpenAI’s ChatGPT embedded into Microsoft 365. With the following capabilities already, and continual improvement, it can TRANSFORM workspaces: Create powerful presentations with a simple prompt with  Copilot in PowerPoint  by adding relevant content from an old document.  Analyze trends and create meaningful data visualizations in seconds with Copilot in Excel. Summarize key discussion points and suggest action items real-time with C opilot in Teams. Moreover, Business Chat can be fed with natural language prompts like “Tell my team how we updated the project strategy,” and it will generate a status update based on the morning’s meetings, emails and chat threads. Amazed at the power of # artificialintelligence . “Today marks the next major step in the evolution of how we interact with computing”, said Satya Nadell...