Hi, my name is Julien Brault.

From 2017 to 2024, I was the CEO of Hardbacon, a fintech I co-founded, which reached 400,000 unique visitors at its peak.

This traffic allowed us to generate enough revenue to maintain partnerships with Canadian banks and keep the lights on while we waited for the implementation of Open Banking in Canada.

While most of the leads we generated for financial institutions came from our website, we were confident that, once Open Banking was adopted, the bulk of leads would come from our app.

Essentially, without Open Banking, bank accounts often disconnected from our app or failed to connect altogether. Without these connections, our app couldn’t fully deliver on its promise of helping people find better financial products based on their spending behaviour.

A Google update decimated our traffic before open banking was implemented in Canada, and in August 2024, we had to file for bankruptcy.

Why share this?

Because that’s how Global Fintech Insider was born.

I wanted to use my background as an economic journalist and fintech entrepreneur to present the most essential fintech news from around the world through the eyes of an insider — the way I would have wanted to read it when I was still a CEO.

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