No need for national digital dollars: RBA
The Reserve Bank of Australia and a global investment bank say the speed of payments innovation will fend off any threat from cryptocurrencies, and creating digitised versions of central bank money will make bank runs much more likely during a crisis. After last year’s speculative bitcoin bubble, the potential for the Australian central bank to issue digital dollars to allow money to move through distributed ledgers is fading. RBA assistant governor Michelle Bullock told a global audience at Sibos that while it’s still open to considering wholesale applications for a digital Australian dollar, it hasn’t yet been convinced of the need to create one, and the RBA does not want […]
2018 AFR Young Rich List: Emily Skye backs Millennial bank start-up
Fitness star and Young Rich Lister Emily Skye may have built a small fortune but that doesn’t mean she’s good with money. “I’ve never really known what’s going on with money, I mean I love to spend it but I’m not able to track it and really be responsible for it,” Ms Skye said. Ms Skye rockets up the 2018 Financial Review Young Rich List with an estimated worth of $36 million, reflecting growth in her online fitness business that attracted an undisclosed investment from Quadrant Private Equity this year. As she continues to build the fitness business, including releasing the first app for her FIT program this year, Ms […]
The Fintech100 – announcing the world’s leading fintech innovators for 2018
The 2018 Fintech100 was announced today, highlighting dynamic fintechs from around the world that are transforming the financial services industry, from digital payments and lending, to insurtech, to neo-banking, as they attract investment at a record pace. The 2018 Fintech100 is the fifth edition of the annual report, a collaboration between fintech investment firm H2 Ventures and KPMG Fintech. The Fintech 100 includes the ‘Leading 50’ fintech firms around the globe, ranked based on innovation, capital raising activity, size and reach; and the ‘Emerging 50’, exciting new fintechs that are at the forefront of innovative technologies and practices and are often pursuing new business models. Key highlights from the 2018 […]
Australia’s ‘first’ blockchain lender sets sights on mortgages
Australia’s “first” blockchain lender, which is set to launch next year, is offering a crowdsourced funding equity to brokers. Australian Mortgage Marketplace (AMM), co-founded by industry stalwarts Graham Andersen (CEO) and Kym Dalton (COO), has pledged to “overhaul” the Australian mortgage market with the “biggest change since the GFC” by funding prime loans on “Australia’s first mortgage securitisation blockchain”. According to the wholesale lender, which aims to be backed by major investors and industry super funds, its “Carbon” securitisation platform will leverage distributed ledger technology to deliver the benefits of increased transparency, security and automation. Its operating efficiencies will also reportedly present “pricing benefits” for Australian borrowers, enabling partner brokers to […]
Huge Sibos event shows surging clout of banking and fintech
More than 7000 global bankers have flooded into the International Convention Centre in Sydney on Monday for an unprecedented opportunity to download the latest cutting-edge thinking about global finance over the next four days. And by the looks of hundreds of booths representing the world’s biggest banks in the vast exhibition hall – which are more like fully blown bank branches – it’s clear some serious business is being done here this week too. The world of global transaction banking used to be relatively boring, uninspiring even; after all, this is the plumbing of the financial system. But the sheer scale and topics on the agenda of this year’s Sibos […]
The Perth women making your life better with technology
While most of the world is still coming to grips with just what blockchain is there are two West Australian women who have poured everything they have into taming the digital beast to tackle real world problems and improve everyday life. Blockchain is the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but across the globe entrepreneurs to huge multinationals are exploring its use in other areas like financial services, energy and education. In its simplest form a blockchain is a digital transaction record that isn’t stored on any one computer. This decentralisation means once a transaction is recorded it cannot be tampered with, making the technology attractive to banks and finance […]
ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott says technology will kill the banking oligopoly
Rapid technological disruption will break apart the Australian banking oligopoly and overturn the universal banking model that has underpinned big bank profits for decades, the chief executive of ANZ Banking Group told thousands of global bankers on Monday. In order to thrive in an uncertain future, banks will need to partner more with start-ups and global tech giants and potentially sell financial products manufactured by outsiders, Shayne Elliott said. The ANZ boss said dealing with the fallout of the Hayne royal commission simultaneously with unprecedented technological change was “challenging”, although he remained optimistic that ANZ could cope with both. The four-day Sibos event in Sydney this week is being attended […]
Irish FinTech company PerfectCard confirms its sale to Australia’s EML for €6m
Irish FinTech company PerfectCard has been sold to Australian payment solutions provider EML Payments in a €6m (A$9.5m) deal. PerfectCard provides incentive and corporate expense solutions including PerfectIncentive and the recently-launched Pecan Expense. The acquisition will result in the expansion of PerfectCard in Ireland, with plans to increase the number of full-time employees over the next few years, the company said. Under the deal EML has acquired 75pc of PerfectCard, having received Central Bank approval for the transaction in the past two weeks. Commenting on the announcement, Nikki Evans, CEO of PerfectCard, described it as an important move for both companies. “It allows EML to self-issue regulated payment products across […]
