Services
Twelve services. One counterparty accountable for the result.
Take the whole structure, or take the single service you need. Most clients start with one and add the rest as the position develops.
Entity and registration
Canadian company incorporation
A Canadian corporation registered provincially or federally, with a Canadian address, directors and genuine substance. This is the first thing any bank or trustee asks for before diligence begins. Delivered through corporate services providers and Canadian counsel, coordinated by MDD.
FINTRAC-registered money services business
Registration with real substance behind it: local accounting, an accountable senior officer, documented frameworks. A certificate with nothing behind it is what gets declined at the bank, and it is the difference in cost between us and a formation agent.
What this fixes
No regulated North American entity, and no lawful, evidenced home for end-user funds. For a foreign firm, registration also reframes what the bank is being asked to assess: an unrecognised overseas operator becomes a supervised North American counterparty that has passed a published gate.
Safeguarding and banking
Safeguarding trust accounts
A safeguarding trust account, a trust and prefunding account, and a trust and processing account, all available in Canadian and US dollars. End-user funds are held by the trustee, segregated from your business, with a per-user sub-ledger behind them.
Safeguarding for firms with a stablecoin rail
Safeguarding of the fiat legs of stablecoin flows: prefunds awaiting minting, redemption proceeds and settlement float in transit. A dual-currency trust across Canadian dollars, US dollars and on-chain balances, with one reconciling sub-ledger. Issuer-risk policy: concentration limits, at-par redemption relationships and depeg triggers.
The fiat legs are a present obligation, not a future one. On-chain safeguarding is anticipated and depends on regulations still to be made.
The full argumentCanadian operational bank accounts
A trust and operational bank account, segregated from end-user funds, so the money that is yours and the money that is not are visibly different things.
Canadian bare trust, for US firms
Often the right first step for a US-owned or US-based MSB not yet ready for a full Canadian structure. It delivers segregation of funds, ledger reconciliation and reduced fiduciary exposure without rebuilding the business around them. Where a US programme is terminated at a sponsor’s discretion, an independent reconciled record of what each end user is owed survives the exit. A partner’s ledger does not.
Who provides this
These accounts are provided by a licensed Canadian trust company acting as independent trustee. MDD structures, coordinates and operates the evidence layer. MDD does not hold client funds. We will tell you who the trustee is when we speak.
Ledger and reconciliation
End-user ledger construction and daily reconciliation
End-user-level records, data feed construction and daily reconciliation. Safeguarding is only worth what it can be proved to be worth, and the ledger is the proof.
A trust deed establishes the legal position. An end-user-level ledger reconciled daily converts that legal arrangement into evidence a risk committee can test on any given day. This is the specific artefact that banking-as-a-service failures made non-negotiable.
What it looks like in practice
- A wallet or neobank can state a total but cannot reconstruct individual entitlements at a date without manual work. The sub-ledger does that in one query.
- A cross-border remitter reconciling corridors, partners and currencies in spreadsheets breaks as volume rises. Constructed feeds produce zero unexplained breaks at period end, which is the number diligence actually asks for.
- A marketplace’s product database is not an accounting record and will not survive an audit. We build a proper sub-ledger alongside it, reconciled to both the trust and the bank account.
Canadian fintechs consistently struggle to obtain reconciliation and accounting support that understands both MSB operations and trust accounting. It is unglamorous, and it is frequently the reason a structure still holds together in year two.
Access to the United States
Access to US sponsor banks
Positioning, framework and relationships with decision-makers at US financial institutions. The scarce asset is not the introduction. It is knowing which institutions have current appetite for which risk profile, and how a firm must be positioned before it is presented. Applications get declined. Positioned firms get underwritten.
US market entry: Chief Revenue Officer guidance
An executive programme: positioning, identifying the right buyers, introductions and accountability. For firms whose market interest never turns into revenue.
Positioning for value: fundraising, exit, expansion
Access to conversations with US banking, payments, technology and credit union executives. For the good company that no US buyer or investor currently has a reason to meet.
What we will not do
We will not promise you a bank. We position, prepare and introduce; the institution decides. Anyone who guarantees you a sponsorship is either misinformed or misleading you. If you are not ready, we will say so before you spend money finding out.
Governance and the platform
Fiduciary and governance as a service
Ongoing oversight, reporting, board pack, framework maintenance and bank relationship governance, produced continuously rather than assembled under pressure in the fortnight before a review. Governance that exists on paper collapses under diligence. Governance that is operated does not.
A single third-party risk questionnaire is what usually exposes the difference. Where governance is operated, the questionnaire is answered from existing outputs.
The MDD orchestration platform
One integration to a safeguarding trust, a custodian bank and a payment services provider, with end-user accounting and reconciliation maintained across all three.
Status: the platform is in development. The workflows behind it, governance, reconciliation, safeguarding and banking access, are operated as a service today. We build the workflow first and automate it second, which is why clients do not wait for software.
Cross-border structure
Canada-Barbados cross-border structure
A commercial Canada-Barbados group structure, delivered with our sister firm Mithril, built to support your whole business: operations, banking, fundraising and exit.
How an engagement runs
Prequalification
AML and compliance due diligence; KYC and KYB on the firm and its principals
Qualification
No feeNDAs agreed, and consultations mapping your problems against what we can do, with an honest view on whether we can materially improve the position
Positioning diagnostic
Yours to keepA board-ready diagnostic with a ranked remediation plan, sequence and indicative cost
Structure and registration
A registered Canadian entity with real substance and a documented safeguarding framework
Safeguarding and banking
A banked, safeguarded operating position and a diligence package that survives a US bank's process
Governance and orchestration
A maintained position, with evidence produced continuously rather than assembled under pressure
Every engagement is scoped and quoted individually. Third-party costs are passed through transparently.
One integration. Safeguarded, banked, reconciled.
Talk to us about integrating with the orchestration platform, or about any single service in it.