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MINERVA AND PAAYS PARTNER TO HELP CANADIAN FINANCING AND LEASING BUSINESSES MEET NEW FINTRAC KYC AND AML REGULATIONS

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TORONTO, April 7, 2025 /CNW/ – Paays Financial Technologies Inc. (“Paays“), a Canadian Enterprise FinTech company and Minerva, a Canadian Enterprise RegTech company are pleased today to announce a new partnership.  This partnership will see Paays integrate Minerva’s AML (“Anti-Money Laundering”) screening API to power the Paays AML Check solution.  When combined with Paays’ market-leading KYC (“Know Your Customer”) solution ID Verifier, this new integration will provide Paays customers with an end-to end, FINTRAC-compliant KYC and AML solution.

On April 1, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (“FINTRAC”), Canada’s financial intelligence unit and anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing supervisor, put into law new regulations which create significant new KYC and AML requirements for Canadian Financing and Leasing Businesses.  In addition to more stringent KYC rules, FINTRAC also introduced new AML requirements on Leasing and Financing Businesses.  Every finance and lease business must now establish a compliance program, enable on-going AML screening of both new applicants and existing borrowers, and adhere to reporting requirements to FINTRAC. 

Although these new regulations have only recently become law, their introduction has been anticipated for the past six months by the Department of Finance. Stemming from the Cullen Commission’s investigation into money laundering in British Columbia’s economy, it is estimated that between $45 billion and $113 billion is laundered annually in Canada, according to the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada. The 2022 Cullen Commission report underscores the urgent need for technological advancements in AML detection and reporting.

Meanwhile, FINTRAC, the federal agency responsible for monitoring suspicious financial activity in Canada, has issued 12 Notices of Violation for non-compliance to financial institutions, resulting in penalties exceeding $26 million since the beginning of 2023.

These fines highlight the seriousness that the Government of Canada (through FINTRAC) is placing on the money-laundering problem in Canada, and the urgent need to enhance AML and fraud prevention measures within the financial sector. Paays and Minerva, industry leaders in fraud prevention and AML compliance respectively, will combine their decades of experience and cutting-edge technologies to empower Financing and Leasing businesses with proactive risk management tools.

“Our partnership with Minerva is a recognition of these new FINTRAC regulations, our commitment to combating financial crime and protecting the integrity of Canada’s Financing and Leasing sectors, along with a strong sense of ownership of the operational burdens these new regulations will create for our customers and the desire to help them ease these burdens,” said David Fry, Founder and CEO of Toronto-based Paays. “By integrating Minerva, Paays is bridging a gap in the market, offering precise, actionable data that is proven to offer protection while not overburdening the businesses that need to use it.”

Minerva’s risk assessment platform consumes accurate, current and relevant data and analyzes it for financial crime risk in real time, then shares that information with Paays in real time.

“Paays’ FINTRAC-compliant KYC solution ID Verifier is the perfect complement to our real-time anti-money laundering risk assessment capabilities,” said Jennifer Arnold, founder and CEO of Toronto-based Minerva. “Together, we can empower Financing and Leasing businesses to avoid onboarding a bad actor in the first place and provide a robust shield against bad actors so they can proactively identify and mitigate risks, ensuring a safer and more secure environment for all participants in the Canadian Financing and Leasing sector.

Better together

Paays and Minerva’s shared commitment to innovation and security is driving this powerful partnership and provides enhanced protection and FINTRAC compliance for Canadian Financing and Leasing businesses. Leveraging their respective experience in fraud prevention and AML, this new partnership will undoubtedly bring forward new innovations that will enhance the financial sector’s ability to tackle money laundering.

About Minerva:

Minerva is an automated risk screening and ongoing monitoring platform that reduces false positives by 75%, enabling compliance teams to focus on true risks rather than noise. Founded by AML industry experts, the platform delivers comprehensive risk screening with intelligent alert management and customizable monitoring schedules. Trusted by leading fintechs screening millions weekly, Minerva helps companies onboard 96% of clients automatically while maintaining robust compliance standards. Learn more about Minerva at gominerva.com. Media contact us at info@gominerva.com.

About Paays:

Paays Financial Technologies is a Canadian-based leader in fraud prevention solutions, specializing in the auto finance and leasing industries. With a focus on leveraging AI and machine learning, Paays delivers cutting-edge tools that protect businesses from financial losses, streamline operations, and enhance customer trust. For more information, visit www.paays.com. Media contact us at info@paays.com

SOURCE Paays Financial Technologies Inc.

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

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