Blockchain and others will transform financial advice
The potential for distributed ledger and associated technologies has fundamental, long-term ramifications for financial planning businesses. Planners need to be across these innovations now so that when commercial solutions that use these technologies hit the market, their businesses are ready to embrace them. Distributed ledger technology is a way of recording information that makes it easy to verify. Blockchain, which is the system that records how the virtual currency Bitcoin is stored, is one application of this technology. Shortened Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) transaction settlement times will likely be the first real change to the market from Blockchain. Last year, the ASX invested $14.9 million to acquire 5 per cent […]
Westpac’s Reinventure buys tech start-up Doshii
The Westpac-backed venture fund Reinventure has splashed its cash on Melbourne-based payments platform start-up Doshii, a spin-off of Australian point-of-sale vendor Impos. Westpac is the largest investor in Reinventure, which recently launched a second $50 million fund to invest in about a dozen Australian technology ventures. It comes amid a broader trend of Australia’s biggest banks investing in fintech companies aiming to disrupt the payments market, which has so far produced mixed results for the incumbent financial giants. Doshii is the country’s only application programming interface company, and gives app developers a common platform that works with hundreds of point-of-sale systems. Its aim is to overcome a problem in the […]
Scott Morrison backs robo-advisers to cheap superannuation advice to retirees
Treasurer Scott Morrison has endorsed “robo-advisers” offering cheap automated superannuation advice as the next step in Australia’s financial industry, and urged consumers to overcome their privacy fears about business and governments sharing personal data. As the Turnbull government continues to battle controversy over Centrelink’s “robo-debt” letters, Mr Morrison has been spruiking to his international counterparts the commercial and economic opportunities of automated services and sharing consumers’ data. “One of the prime examples is robo-advice, which has the potential to offer financial advice to a wider cross‑section of the community,” Mr Morrison told at a G20 conference in Germany. “In Australia, businesses are beginning to integrate robo-advice into the retirement savings […]
IBM, Optus and Australia Post join blockchain group
IBM, Optus and Australia Post have joined the Australian Digital Currency Commerce Association (ADCCA).
Commonwealth Bank and QTC create first government bond using blockchain
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Commonwealth Bank) has arranged a virtual cryptobond for Queensland Treasury Corporation using its capital markets blockchain platform, in the first blockchain bond issuance by a government entity both in Australia and in the world. The transaction marks the first trial of Commonwealth Bank’s private, permissioned blockchain platform for the end-to-end issuance of bonds. Queensland Treasury Corporation (QTC) successfully used the blockchain to generate a bond tender, view investor bids in real time, finalise investment allocation and settle instantly with investors. QTC acted in both the issuer and investor role to test the end-to-end process for the issuance. The QTC bond was created in digital form using […]
Scott Morrison to tell global finance leaders Australia backs fintech
The federal government wants to see the fintech sector “grow big, to thrive and deliver benefits for consumers and the economy”, Treasurer Scott Morrison will tell global central bank governors and finance ministers on Wednesday. In a speech to a high-level G20 conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, Mr Morrison will say fintech can boost banking competition and facilitate access to new forms of finance. He will also tell leaders of the global economy that Australia is “strongly pursuing” blockchain technology, and wants to unlock the “enormous untapped potential of Australia’s data”. After the Productivity Commission in November called for consumers to receive a “comprehensive right” to their data, which would allow […]
New payments platform could create army of fintech innovation, says NPP boss
The man overseeing the rollout of Australia’s new payments system says every business across the economy that makes or receives payments could become a fintech innovator by developing “overlay” services to enhance customers’ experiences. Construction of the “new payments platform” (NPP), which from October will allow money and data to move between bank accounts instantaneously, has been driven by the Reserve Bank of Australia for the past four years after an earlier bank-driven idea for a similar system collapsed. The core philosophy of the NPP is the separation of the infrastructure – which provides a messaging, addressing and settlement system – from a layer for new products that will be […]
SocietyOne appoints John Cummins as Chief Investment Officer
SocietyOne, Australia’s pioneering and leading lending marketplace, has appointed John Cummins to the new role of Chief Investment Officer, a position which reflects the critical importance of its investor funders to the company’s future growth. John will have responsibility for all of SocietyOne’s funding requirements to support demand from an expanding number of borrower customers. This will include building on SocietyOne’s existing network of investor funders who include large financial institutions, mutual banks, credit unions, high net worth individuals and SMSFs. John will also play a key role in helping the company to achieve its five-year goals of expanding and deepening its funding base to support growth in borrower customers […]
