TORONTO, June 23, 2016 /CNW/ - Today, MaRS announces
the official opening of its corporate innovation district, the MaRS
C Suite, with its founding sponsor CIBC. Located in the heart of
the MaRS Centre, the suite acts as a bridge between corporate
leaders and entrepreneurs.
Inside the open concept suite, small teams of developers,
designers and market analysts work to predict market trends and
rapidly iterate new technologies. Tenants include CIBC Live Labs,
Lab of Forward Thinking (LOFT)—a Manulife / John Hancock partnership—and Moneris, the
country's largest credit and debit card processor.
"The definition of convenience in banking is changing, as
personal and business clients adopt technology that allows them to
bank when, where and how they choose, and we intend to be at the
forefront of that evolution. Our work at CIBC Live Labs is all
about delivering on changing banking needs with innovative
solutions developed in a highly collaborative, fast-moving
environment," said David Williamson,
Group Head of Retail and Business Banking, CIBC.
The CIBC Live Labs team is already working in the MaRS C Suite
on the next wave of fintech solutions, having recently conceived
and developed two firsts in the Canadian banking sector, the CIBC
Apple Watch app and Hello Home Mortgage app.
"CIBC, Manulife and Moneris share MaRS' belief that
collaboration accelerates the rate of innovation. In the MaRS C
Suite, financial technology services teams from several
institutions are collaborating with each other and with ventures
across our sectors to develop new technologies," says Ilse
Treurnicht, CEO of MaRS Discovery District.
In eliminating silos between organizations, the MaRS C Suite
enables teams working there to accelerate the pace of innovation by
learning from each other's mistakes and successes.
"Manulife looks forward to working alongside other institutions
in the MaRS C Suite to create a collaborative atmosphere that
nurtures innovation," said Greg
Framke, Executive Vice President and Chief Information
Officer, Manulife. "Customers are demanding solutions that leverage
technologies they use every day, and the MaRS C Suite will develop
ideas so that Canada's leading
financial institutions will deliver those solutions."
Moneris is also developing complementary technologies to improve
the retail experience for merchants in a range of areas, including
mobile point-of-sale, omni-channel retailing and core payments. The
company is building out solutions that go beyond the simple sales
transaction, to drive innovation in the fintech sector.
"By collaborating with fintech innovators and startup founders
within our immediate environment, our team is better able to
forecast market need and develop technology to respond quickly,"
says Rob Cameron, Chief Product and
Marketing Officer for Moneris. "For example, by developing our
enhanced payment gateway and developer portal at MaRS, we can
stress test and iterate as we go."
About MaRS Discovery District
MaRS Discovery District (@MaRSDD) in
Toronto is one of the world's
largest urban innovation hubs. MaRS supports promising young
ventures that are tackling key challenges in the health, cleantech,
finance & commerce, as well as work & learning sectors. In
addition to helping startups launch, grow and scale, the MaRS
community is dedicated to cross-disciplinary collaboration,
commercialization of discoveries and driving ideas to impact.
About CIBC Live Labs
CIBC Live Labs is a technology and innovation incubator housed in
the C Suite at MaRS Discovery District. An ideation hub where
collaboration and creativity collide, it's here that CIBC works
with the country's top technology talent on new banking
innovations. Its in-house JavaScript developers, iOS and Android
enthusiasts, and co-op students are constantly reimagining
forward-thinking solutions to meet CIBC clients' evolving digital
expectations. Technology conceived and developed at CIBC Live Labs
includes the CIBC Apple Watch app and the Hello Home Mortgage app,
both firsts in Canadian mobile banking.
About Lab of Forward Thinking (LOFT)
Lab of
Forward Thinking (LOFT) is a global innovation capability
within Manulife and John Hancock.
LOFT was created to help defend Manulife's competitive advantages
within a quickly evolving and highly disrupted industry. The
purpose of LOFT is to support and facilitate the creation of
disruptive and innovative business offerings that best serve our
customers and create value for the organization. Through a global
network of physical LOFT labs, we have built environments where
teams discover, incubate, and accelerate work on new technologies,
products/services, and processes in a fail-fast culture where every
idea is given a fighting chance to succeed. We have labs in
Boston, Toronto and Singapore.
About Moneris
As one of North America's largest providers of payment
processing solutions, Moneris offers credit, debit, wireless and
online payment services for merchants in virtually every industry
segment, processing more than three billion transactions annually.
Moneris is pleased to be one of the founding companies within the
MaRS C Suite, introducing our leadership in payment innovation to
established and emerging companies. The Moneris team situated at
the MaRS C Suite conceives and builds payment solutions and will
hold regular developer-outreach events. Moneris also collaborates
with fintech innovators and startup founders to advance
market-changing technologies in a range of areas, including mobile
point-of-sale, omni-channel retailing and core payments.
SOURCE CIBC - Corporate