Social Enterprises making the most of Equity Crowdfunding
Equity crowdfunding has been labelled the way of the future for social enterprise, with one community-owned renewable energy retailer raising over $300,000 to expand across Australia. Enova Community Energy’s equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowd88 has raised $348,649 two days before it’s due to wrap up on 4 October. While it has fallen short of its target of $600,000 to $3 million, Enova chair Alison Crook AO said this was not surprising, adding that the board would consider extending the campaign. “As with all campaigns it’s dependent on publicity and it’s taken us a while to ramp this up,” Crook told Pro Bono News. “So this is actually par for the […]
BlackRock outlines ETF plans for Australia
Actively managed ETFs are one of the things that are off the table for BlackRock’s Australian business at least for now, according to the newly-appointed iShares head Christian Obrist. Obrist spoke to Financial Standard about the opportunities that BlackRock sees in advisers, institutionals and managed accounts. “We are not going to go down that track [of actively managed ETFs] at the moment because of the single market-maker model and we strongly advocate for a multiple market-maker model where your ETFs are put into a competition to trade,” Obrist says. “If you have a product that is in a single market-maker model and the market starts to tank, you have one […]
Banking royal commission interim report: Banks to tap each other’s account data
There’s a clear takeaway for the fintech scene from the banking royal commission’s interim report: the major banks will have to get much more sophisticated accessing and analysing spending data generated by customers. In the wake of Commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s blockbuster report, data policy inside the banks is no longer going to be viewed solely through the prism of customer experience but also of regulatory compliance. The ability to tap reliable data sources held outside the bank, and making sense of those numbers, will become a mission critical function for all banks. This means spending on data analytics technology is set to rise, and banks are likely to accelerate engagement […]
The crypto world is going wild for ‘stablecoins’ — here’s everything you need to know about them
The latest innovation in the fast-moving world of cryptocurrencies is the “stablecoin” – cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets such as the dollar or gold. A report from crypto wallet provider Blockchain released this week found that “the number of active stablecoin projects has dramatically increased over the past 12-18 months and more than a dozen project teams have stated they plan to launch in the coming weeks/months.” There are now over 50 in development globally. Here’s everything you need to know about the hottest new area of crypto: What is a stablecoin? “Stablecoins” are cryptocurrencies whose prices are linked to a real-world asset. In theory, they could be linked to […]
Bitcoin Price: Is blockchain cryptocurrency still the future?
It’s highly volatile, can be extremely risky, and is something most have heard of but don’t know much about. And after a horror 12 months which saw Bitcoin plunge by more than 60 percent most investors who were bold enough to invest are now wondering if they will ever reap any reward from their investments. While nothing in economics is certain, those who trade and invest are fairly confident it will happen but not straight away. According to Fred Schebesta, Co-Founder of Finder-backed cryptocurrency financial services company HiveEx.com, crypto is basically digital gold and like the real thing, is more of a long-term investment. Mr Schebesta admits the high risk […]
Fears simmer about repeat of Storm Financial fallout
One fintech firm fears that the political reaction to the Hayne royal commission will result in more ineffective reforms, similar to the ones arising from the collapse of Storm Financial crisis. Raiz chief executive George Lucas said that when the royal commission hands down its final report by 1 February 2019, the odds are that it will call for more regulation. The government of the day will duly oblige, said Mr Lucas, rightly fearing “the political fallout if it fails to implement the report’s recommendations in the wake of the malevolent behaviour being unveiled”. “The legislation will pass the parliament, giving the regulators more power to keep the top end […]
OnRamp’s AUDRamp goes live as first AUD-pegged stablecoin cryptocurrency
Shortly after the announcement of a still-unnamed AUD-pegged stablecoin from Bit Trade and Emparta, set to launch in 2019, OnRamp Technologies has gone live with the world’s first fully operational and fully compliant fiat-backed AUD stablecoin. The move comes as part of OnRamp Technologies’ broader efforts to tokenise assets as part of an ASIC-approved registered managed investment scheme. AUDRamp (AUDR) is up first, along with the slightly mind-bending ERC20 bitcoin-pegged BTCR, which is, in a sense, putting bitcoin on the Ethereum blockchain. AUDR got the stamp of approval from Australian regulators on 8 June, making it one of the earlier projects to achieve that level of formal recognition. Beyond being […]
Xero backs itself with $413m convertible notes
Cloud-based accounting company Xero has backed itself to continue growing strongly, raising $US300 million ($413 million) in five-year convertible notes with an exercise price 70 per cent above its share price on Thursday. Capital raising via the issue of convertible notes is relatively commonplace among US technology companies – NASDAQ-listed Atlassian raised $US850 million this way in April – however Xero chief executive Steve Vamos said it was “groundbreaking” for an Australasian company. “If we think we’ve got strong growth potential in the future, we don’t want to issue stock at current prices and dilute our shareholders,” Xero chief financial officer Sankar Narayan said. “We were well placed to raise in […]
