Crowdfund laws delayed, again
Legislation extending equity crowdfunding to private companies has been delayed again despite enjoying bipartisan support, meaning the new regime won’t come into effect until at least September, a year after the bill was first introduced to Parliament. The amendments to the Corporations Act allowing private Australian companies to undertake an equity crowdfunding round were passed by the lower house in late February after first being introduced in September last year. The bill was set to be debated – with the expectation that it would pass – in the Senate on Monday night, but was put off as a result of the ongoing debate surrounding the government’s planned company tax cut. […]
‘I’m not a silly investor’: SMEs accepting cryptocurrency as payment
When Robert Tadros was asked by a client last year if he would accept cryptocurrency as payment, he was “quite taken aback”. Being a believer in blockchain technology and a crypto-investor himself, the founder of search and social agency Impress!ve Digital was open to the request. “It’s an online store that the client operates. He was paying for his stock in cryptocurrency. So I embraced the idea.” Cryptocurrency client base increases In 12 months, Impress!ve, has grown 500 per cent from $600,000 to $3.5 million in annual revenue. Tadros attributes this growth to pivoting from a being a generalist agency to specialising in SEO, SEM and Facebook advertising. Three of […]
Equitise finalises Australia’s first equity crowdfunding with Xinja raising more than $2 million
Equitise is finalising Australia’s first equity crowdfunding offer, with aspiring neobank Xinja raising more than $2 million as it prepares to launch products designed to transform the banking experience for Australians. One-in-four investors have committed the minimum $250 for Xinja’s crowdfunding raise. Almost 7-in-10 have committed less than $1000, highlighting the accessibility of equity crowdfunding for regular investors, not to mention the opportunity for startups willing to work with them. Xinja’s capital raise was the first full retail equity crowdfunding offer to go live in Australia and is still open to investors until March 31. Equitise co-founder Chris Gilbert said the success of the raise underlines the willingness of everyday […]
ING – ‘Australia’s oldest fintech’ – is reporting a sudden surge in customer growth
The CEO of ING Australia, Uday Sareen, sees his bank as Australia’s oldest digital finance house. “We are Australia’s oldest fintech and we are profitable,” Uday Sareen told Business Insider as the bank announced its full year results. ING had record customer growth in 2017, adding more than 300,000, or almost a third, to hit 1.36 million active customers. Statutory net profit after tax was up 18% to $348 million.“We’re proud of what we’ve achieved this year,” says Sareen. The Dutch multinational banking and financial services group, which entered Australia in 1999, now has 1,178 employees and holds 3% of the local banking market.Sareen believes ING is at a tipping […]
Commonwealth Nations beating America on FinTech Regulation
There’s a global competition between governments for who can best accommodate emerging financial technologies, and the United States is losing. Just last week, Australia and the United Kingdom announced that they will strengthen their “FinTech Bridge,” a collaborative program between the two nations that will facilitate the entry of FinTech start-ups into each jurisdiction’s regulatory sandbox. The agreement will also include an initiative to reduce barriers to licensing for firms that are already licensed in the other country. The agreement is fitting, given that the two nations are some of the world’s leaders for accommodating emerging financial technology. The UK is perhaps the best known, with the Financial Conduct Authority […]
Ignition Wealth announces new CEO Manish Prasad
Ignition Wealth Co-Founder and inaugural CEO Mark Fordree today announced the appointment of Manish Prasad to the role of CEO of Ignition Wealth. “On behalf of the Ignition Wealth Board, executive team and staff, we are extremely pleased to have engaged Manish Prasad to lead Ignition Wealth. Manish is a deeply experienced and well respected financial services executive, whose expertise and knowledge will guide Ignition Wealth as we continue to grow.”, said Mark Fordree, Executive Director, Ignition Wealth. Manish is a highly credentialed financial services executive with deep domain experience in financial advice across all channels and segments. Manish’s career includes senior roles globally for NAB/MLC, AMP/AXA, Genesys Wealth Advisors, […]
Australia’s first equity crowdfunding deal closes successfully
Equity crowdfunding platform OnMarket has successfully closed Australia’s first equity crowdfunding offer. Revvies Energy Strips Limited (Revvies) has become the first company in Australia to raise capital by utilising the government’s new equity crowdfunding legislation. Equity crowdfunding is the new way for everyday investors, mums and dads, and the millennial generation to invest in early-stage and growth-stage businesses. Where traditionally, this capital raising space was dominated by wealthy individuals, venture capitalists and angel investors, now everyone is able to handpick a company, invest and gain a stake. OnMarket founder Ben Bucknell said “Equity crowdfunding brings entrepreneurs and consumer investors together for the first time, and that is what we have […]
Sydney Angels funds QPay $570k to steal millennial students from banks
Australia’s first ever student marketplace app, QPay, has raised $570,000 from a series of high profile investors, including Sydney Angels and the Sydney Angels Sidecar Fund 2, to break into student banking through the release of a student-targeted QPay MasterCard. QPay aims to use the QPay MasterCard to capture the largest cluster of millennial consumers at the point when they’re most likely to begin making serious financial decisions – when enrolled in tertiary education. “University is the time when life decisions start to become quite future-focussed, especially regarding our finances,” said Andrew Clapham, Co-Founder of QPay. “We might be weighing up the amount of student debt we can responsibly accrue, […]
