ICO Submission to the Australian Treasury – Why ICO should stand for “Illegal Coin Offering”
By Aleksandar Svetski, CEO of Amber Labs Preface This article is an extension to a submission the authors have made to the Australian Treasury during their information-gathering process. We believe it’s critical for people to better understand what really happened during this mania, the skewed incentives that resulted and the ramifications of this blind excess. The ultimate aim is to help ensure something this deranged does not happen in a space with so much promise. Please also note: Rory and myself are both 100% for free markets, choice and people’s right to do what they want — so this is not some request for socialist compensation. This is an exposé. The goal […]
Afterpay rival Zip narrows losses
Zip’s first-half net loss has narrowed as it more than doubled its turnover. On Thursday, the buy now, pay later provider posted a net loss of $6.8 million for the six months ended December 31, 2018, compared with a $14.6 million loss in the year earlier period. Its revenue was up 114 per cent to $34.2 million from $16.0 million turnover in the year earlier period. Zip said it now has over 1 million customer accounts and over 12,600 merchants. In the last six months Zip signed a number of major retailers to its platform, it said, including Bunnings, Target, Officeworks, Appliances Online and the Super Retail Group. To […]
FinTech opportunities to come from Australia’s Royal Commission
Australia is currently holding a Royal Commission into the banking sector and it’s fair to say that what has been uncovered so far has rocked both the public, the industry and policy makers alike. The Royal Commission has uncovered a culture of big business not acting in the best interests of their customers, which appears to especially be the case for large institutions. For example, AMP one of Australia’s largest financial institutions, deliberately mislead the regulator on several occasions and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has had several issues including criminal offences and has paid more than 700 million dollars fine to the regulator over a number of breaches over […]
Hut34 goes live with world’s first Google-powered Ethereum wallet and enhanced wallet-as-a-service offering
The Hut34 team has gone live with the world’s first Google powered cryptocurrency wallet. With a single click, users can securely, quickly and easily access their Ethereum and cryptocurrency tokens via their own Google credentials. The Hut34 Wallet beta launched late 2018 and since then a raft of exciting new features and functionality have been added to ease the public adoption of emergent token economies. “We are excited about the future applications of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, but as it stands access to and using the technology is too hard and time consuming. Only the highly motivated are willing to cross the pain threshold to enter the space,” says Tim McNamara, […]
Raiz Invest partners with UNSW to power rewards with machine learning
Raiz Invest Limited, the mobile-first micro-investing platform, has partnered with UNSW and with support from the NSW Government to develop a machine-learning recommendation engine for its Raiz Rewards. The new technology will recommend to Raiz customers more relevant offers and brands. It’s designed to provide a more seamless, personalised experience for customers when navigating more than 165 brands on Raiz Rewards. With a customer base of more than 179,000, skewing towards the under-35 demographic, the intuitive experience provided by machine-learning will better address the demands of this millennial audience. “Millennials have grown up with technology at their fingertips. They expect all their interactions to be easy to navigate and, above […]
New York fintech startup trueDigital’s new CEO to bring cross-border payments to Australia
trueDigital Holdings, LLC, a global provider of financial infrastructure technologies and products for the digital economy, announced today it has appointed former Bridgewater Associates executive Thomas Kim as its Chief Executive Officer and a Member of its Board of Directors. Kim brings an extensive track record of trading technology leadership at multiple major financial institutions and software providers to his role at trueDigital. He joins the company following seven years with Bridgewater Associates, where he most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of the Investment Engine Group. Earlier in his career he held positions as Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, responsible for the Townsend Analytics Electronic Trading franchise, and held […]
Trust deficit means fintechs will fly
Leading fintech founders believe the fallout from The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry is a great opportunity for them to wrest market share from the major banks. They believe their existing focus on customers is a serious competitive advantage they can exploit as mainstream financial services businesses reposition their operations subsequent to the release of the final report last week. Jason Wilby, director of insurtech Huddle Insurance, says for too long, there has been an imbalance of power in the financial services sector. “Now is the time for new and emerging fintechs to flip the financial services industry on its head, for the […]
Techboard data shows the startling growth of the Australian fintech sector
US-based data company CB Insights recently reported that VC investment in Australian Fintech had grown from $67m in 2017 to $343 million in 2018. While this does show massive growth in funding for Australia’s fintech sector, data from Australian Startup Data Company Techboard indicates that this represents a significant understatement of the sector’s growth. Techboard has recently released its Report for the December quarter 2018 which revealed another $1.066B in funding for Australian Startups and young tech companies. This was the second consecutive quarter of over $1b funding across all sectors and took the total amount of funding for the 2018 Calendar year to over $4b, up around $1/2b revealed […]
