Heinemann Sydney Airport stores now offering Alipay through Tyro
Australia’s business-only bank Tyro, announced its next Alipay integration with Sydney Airport tax and duty-free retailer Heinemann Australia, where the payment system is now live. Tyro is the first Australian bank to offer Alipay to its merchants with Heinemann Gold Coast International Airport going live last month, following the deal signed with Alipay in August 2018. With 900 million users choosing to pay for goods and services globally via Alipay and its strategic partners, it has evolved from a digital wallet to a lifestyle enabler and is the number one payment method in China. Through its partnership with Alipay, Tyro is now helping Australian businesses access the ever-expanding Chinese visitor […]
Westpac fast payments rollout a ‘tipping point’
A $1 billion overhaul of Australia’s payment system has passed a key milestone, with all big four banks now offering near real-time payments to most of their customers. After banks were last year criticised for taking too long to roll out a fast payment service, Westpac has switched on the new payments platform (NPP) for 3.6 million accounts, it said. It plans to roll out access for customers of St George and other brands it owns over 2019. Westpac had previously only been offering fast payments to customers in some smaller states, not its home base of NSW, but the bank now believes it is contributing about a third of […]
Banks cull ATMs as more customers ditch cash
Major banks removed hundreds of ATMs in the latest year, as the industry responded to the scrapping of withdrawal fees and consumers further reduced their use of cash. In a trend that is tipped to ramp up as digital payments take off, all of the big four have made cuts to their ATM networks in the latest 12 months for which figures are available, with one lender culling one in four machines. The decline of ATMs, which were first rolled out by banks in the 1980s, has been predicted by experts for several years, but it is only fairly recently that numbers have begun to fall meaningfully from their peak […]
Neobank Douugh wants to take HENRYs from the big four after Regional Australia Bank deal
Douugh, an Australian fintech start-up run by SocietyOne co-founder Andy Taylor, has secured the last piece of the puzzle it needed to join the race to knock off the big four banks as one of an emerging group of neobanks. The company, which has developed a so-called “smart” bank account, with an artificial intelligence-based personal finance assistant known as Sophie, has secured a wholesale banking deal with Armidale-based Regional Australia Bank, meaning it will be able to offer full bank accounts later this year. The partnership agreement means Douugh will bypass the need to go through the APRA approval process, which saw Volt Bank announced as Australia’s newest bank on […]
Chinese tech giant WeBank poised to disrupt Australian banking sector
Australian banks have a new reason to look over their shoulders as Chinese digital-only bank WeBank moves ahead with plans to establish a foothold Down Under. WeBank, which is valued at $US21 billion ($29.4 billion) and has written more than 100 million loans in its first five years in business, quietly began laying the foundations for its digital-only banking venture with a flurry of trademark applications on December 5 last year. With the aid of Adelaide-based legal firm KHQ Lawyers, WeBank is seeking to trademark the phrase “WeBank” and a series of Chinese characters that can be translated into English as “microloan”. The application lists the Chinese company’s Shenzhen headquarters […]
Collection House acquires $8.5m stake in Volt Bank
A pathway set up by regulators to incentivise new entrants in the banking sector is starting to gather momentum, with Volt Bank receiving an $8.5 million investment from listed company Collection House (ASX: CLH). The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) yesterday granted Volt a licence to operate as an authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) without restrictions, as part of a framework set up in May 2018 to assist small firms with limited financial resources. At the time, APRA chairman Wayne Byrnes said making it easier for aspiring ADIs to enter the market would help enhance competition and potentially innovate new business models, while the scheme would also maintain safety and stability […]
Apple Pay goes live for CBA
Commonwealth Bank customers can now use their iPhones for tap-and-go payments, in a change that may up the pressure on the remaining big banks to follow suit and cave in to the tech giant. The country’s biggest bank on Wednesday started providing Apple Pay, a service that allows customers to make contactless payments with their phones, as well as streamlined purchases in apps and on the web. Until CBA announced its deal with Apple last month, ANZ Bank had been the only big four bank to provide the service in Australia, after CBA, Westpac and National Australia Bank reached a stalemate in talks with Apple in 2016 over access to […]
Big four banks consider creating their own digital brands
Each of the big four banks have considered launching new digital bank brands to attract new, young, digital-savvy customers. Apart from National Australia Bank’s UBank, the plans have been non-starters, getting lost among layers of bureaucracy, management changes and restrictions on new investment. But the pending launch of Volt Bank, which on Tuesday received an unrestricted banking licence from the prudential regulator, and with Up already in the market, the majors might be forced to reconsider whether creating entirely new standalone digital brands, or partnering with emerging players in the emerging “neobank” space, is needed to stay on the front foot in the fast-moving world of digital banking. NAB is […]
