Helping Canadian businesses manage the complexities of cross-border payments and banking is at the heart of what Loop does—and for founder and CEO Cato Pastoll, the drive to serve entrepreneurs stems from personal experience.
“I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family. My parents were small business owners, so I’ve kind of been very connected to small businesses my whole life,” said Pastoll. “That’s one of the things that inspired me to start the company.”
Launched in 2015, Loop is a financial services platform based in downtown Toronto, serving small and medium-sized businesses across Canada—especially those in the retail sector. “Loop is a financial services platform. We help small businesses across Canada access a platform that helps them manage their business, banking and payments in a single, centralized place.”
At its core, Loop is designed to simplify international commerce. “We help businesses manage their money more seamlessly internationally. So oftentimes in today’s modern world, companies have customers that are international or have suppliers that are international, and what we do is we make it easier for businesses to get paid in other markets or other countries and other currencies.”
This includes helping clients open local bank accounts abroad to facilitate smoother transactions. “We can help companies set up local bank accounts in those countries so they can receive payments or make payments to their suppliers as they expand into markets like Europe.”
Loop’s relevance has grown amid economic shifts and trade uncertainty. “Many businesses are looking to diversify,” said Pastoll. “There’s a lot of Canadian businesses that rely heavily on the US… but one thing that I’ve been hearing on the ground is people are starting to look at, okay, what about Europe? What about the UK? Are there other countries, other markets that we can do business with?”
Retailers, in particular, are a key segment for the company. “Loop today works with many retail brands. It’s a very big industry segment of ours,” he noted. “We’ve been very much listening to customers, understanding what their challenges and pain points are, and then trying to figure out what we can do to help them navigate these times.”
With inflation and rising costs squeezing margins, businesses are also leaning on Loop to improve efficiency. “People are just watching their bottom lines even closer right now… Our product and platform can help them potentially eradicate some of those costs to help boost profitability when times are tough.”
Loop’s evolution accelerated in 2022 with the launch of new products including a credit card and accounts payable platform, giving businesses even more tools to manage their operations under one roof.
The company, now at 30 employees, remains fully based in Toronto. “All our team is in downtown Toronto. Everyone is actually here in our office.”
Pastoll describes his leadership style as dynamic and situational. “I can be somebody that’s really hands-on… working alongside the team,” he said. “At the same time, I like to build support around people and I like to see other people kind of take on challenges themselves and help them succeed.”
He believes the most effective leaders can toggle between both modes. “Not always needing to be in the driver’s seat, and also inversely not always kind of giving backseat instructions to the driver. I think you’ve got to kind of strike the right balance.”
Born and raised in London, England, Pastoll moved to Canada as a teenager when his mother—who ran a catering business—relocated. He later studied at Western University’s Ivey Business School, earning a degree in business and economics.
At a very young age he taught himself how to program and build computers. He always had a passion for technology and knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur.
That early exposure to entrepreneurship, technology, and banking challenges shaped his career. “I used to help with some of the financial parts of running [my mother’s] business,” he said. “I think I drew back to that experience of like, why aren’t banks and financial solutions helpful to entrepreneurs?”
With Loop, Pastoll has aimed to answer that question with innovation.
“When you think about why financial institutions exist, one of their primary missions is supposed to be to help businesses and help stimulate commercial activity,” he said. “But in the modern world, they’ve kind of very much gotten removed from that mission.”
Loop is working to change that—starting with Canada’s retailers.
“We have been working to help many companies, but we’ve seen that retailers in particular have been a key and important segment of Canada. So excited to kind of build our relationship with that community further.”
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