Fintechs target millennials with online financial services
Millennials, a demographic group born between 1980 and 2000, make up one of the largest living generations and have now overtaken the baby boomers. Millennials are likely to fall into three categories: • Inheritors: With wealthy parents, they are major consumers while they wait to inherit. • Strivers: Coming from a more modest background, they are studying, saving and working hard with ambitions for promotion. They will borrow to support their lifestyle, not unlike inheritors. • Given-ups: They are more likely earning a low salary but continue to consume as much as the other two categories. Buying a house is not on the agenda, so they do not see the […]
Australian fintech company Prospa named Best Employer in AON Hewitt Best Employers Program
Prospa, Australia’s leading online lender to small business, has been named Best Employer in the AON Hewitt Best Employers program for 2017 – the first year the company has entered the awards. Prospa has been awarded the sought after status due to the strong connection the company builds between its team and customers, and the problem they are solving for them. A strong leadership team led by joint CEOs Beau Bertoli and Greg Moshal, delivers a strong emphasis on company culture and a customer-centric focus, and has helped create a highly engaged, high performing team that cares deeply about Australian small business owners. The AON Hewitt award builds on Prospa’s […]
Moroku teams up with banking software giant Temenos to help parents help their children win financially
Swiss based Temenos today announce that it is making Moroku’s ChoreScout app available to its banking customers via the Temenos Marketplace to help banks educate the next generation on better money management and invest in long term relationships. The announcement sees ChoreScout integrated with the Temenos core banking platform, whilst marketplace availability means that existing Temenos banks are able to login to the marketplace, review background material, request a free trial and be provided with test accounts. With over 2,000 firms across the globe, including 41 of the top 50 banks, relying on Temenos to process the daily transactions of more than 500 million banking customers, the agreement gives […]
Westpac launches new corporate lending portal
Westpac Banking Corp has launched a new internet banking portal for its corporate customers to make it easier to drawdown loans and request guarantees, a move it hopes will help its institutional bank retain customers and lift revenue. Ahead of a market briefing by Westpac Institutional Bank’s chief executive Lyn Cobley on Friday morning, presentation slides released to the ASX show Westpac will be seeking to use new technology to increase customer self-servicing in order to drive efficiencies. In the first half, expenses in WIB were down 3 per cent from the previous half, to $657 million. Westpac Institutional Bank provides 17 per cent of Westpac Group’s earnings and delivers […]
Government must leave encryption alone, or it will endanger blockchain
If we could give Malcolm Turnbull one piece of economic advice right now – one piece of advice about how to protect the economy against a challenging and uncertain future – it would be this: don’t mess with encryption. Earlier this month the government announced that it was going to “impose an obligation” on device manufacturers and service providers to provide law enforcement authorities access to encrypted information on the presentation of a warrant. At the moment it’s unclear what exactly this means. Attorney-General George Brandis and Malcolm Turnbull have repeatedly denied they want a legislated “backdoor” into encrypted devices, but the loose way they’ve used that language suggests some sort […]
Prospa raises $20m from Partners for Growth
Online business lender Prospa has raised $20 million from Silicon Valley-based Partners for Growth through a tailored debt facility that will allow it to ramp up loans and further develop its technology allowing credit assessments to be made in seconds. Prospa, which has lent more than $400 million to small businesses, up from $250 million in February after a strong fourth quarter, has deals with 4000 distribution partners, including finance brokers and cloud accounting platforms. It also has a referral partnership with Westpac Banking Corp. Prospa chief financial officer Ed Bigazzi said some of the new capital will be used for product development, including in invoice financing, and a stronger […]
Australia leads non-core markets in fintech investment deals, but what does the sector need to grow?
Australia has emerged alongside Brazil as a leading fintech market after facilitating the largest fintech investment deals outside of the core markets of Asia, Europe and North America in the past 12 months, a report from CB Insights has found. The Global Fintech Trends report analysed global trends and found that half of the 10 largest fintech deals outside of core markets took place in Australia between the second quarter of 2016 and the second quarter of 2017. The remaining four took place in Brazil, and one took place in South Africa. Online small business lending platform Prospa topped the five Australian deals that made the list with its AirTree Ventures-led $25 […]
Australian, Abu Dhabi regulators to co-operate on fintech
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has reached an agreement to co-operate with its United Arab Emirates counterpart, the Abu Dhabi Global Market, on financial technology. As part of the agreement, the two regulatory authorities will share information to keep on top of each other’s regulatory and commercial developments in order to support financial innovation in Australia and the UAE. ASIC’s innovation hub and the ADGM regulatory laboratory will be made available for innovative fintech businesses under the agreement. Most of the fintech activity by start-ups in the Middle East and North Africa region has focused on payments and mobile wallets, ASIC said. “With this fintech collaboration, ADGM and […]
