Australia is taking steps to enhance its fintech industry
Australia has been looking to develop its own fintech ecosystem for some time now, and has made progress to establish itself as one of the bigger players in Asia, next to Singapore, Hong Kong, and China. However, there are still hurdles in the country, such as its four big banks having a very large market share — Commonwealth, Westpac, ANZ, and NAB together control over 80% of all owner occupier home loans and 85% of all investor housing loans — which makes it difficult for fintechs to establish themselves. However, the fintech industry in Australia may see a change soon. Earlier this week, the first restricted banking license was granted […]
NAB to fund energy fintech Brighte, backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes
National Australia Bank has applied its special lending framework designed to support fintech start-ups to offer a scalable, debt financing package to Brighte, the home energy lender backed by Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes. NAB has provided a $20 million debt facility to Brighte, which will make its first drawdown on the funds in the coming weeks, and the bank has an appetite to increase that amount. Demand for solar panels and batteries is expected to surge as more households look to reduce home energy bills. The deal is the latest for NAB in the fintech space, after it provided a debt facility to instalment payments provider Afterpay, which was initially […]
Peppermint launches international remittance business Bizmoto
Peppermint Innovation Limited announces the launch of its new online international remittance portal, Bizmoto, aiming to leverage off its burgeoning Philippines mobile-banking platform. Bizmoto, which roughly translates into “Your Business” in Filipino language, allows money to be transferred from Australia to the Philippines and is initially focussing on enabling ex-pat Filipinos living in Australia and their affiliates to easily transfer monies back to family and friends who are living in the Philippines. The growing up take of Peppermint’s mobile banking, remittance and payments technology platform in the Philippines provides an ideal marketing opportunity to promote the online Bizmoto portal to the Filipino community. The Bizmoto portal can be found at […]
Open banking framework to drive customer choice and innovation across Australia
Australia’s fintech industry has welcomed an Australian Government decision to put the customer first by pushing back against big bank delaying tactics and introducing open banking reforms from mid-next year. “A government-backed open banking framework will be a game-changer for consumers and businesses, along with drive a new wave of fintech innovation and growth in Australia,” said FinTech Australia chair Stuart Stoyan. “Finally, customers will be able to use a regulated system to unlock the power of their own data to get access to financial services better tailored to their needs.” “This reform is expected to force downward pressure on lending costs, allow people to more easily manage their budget and […]
Fintech threatens credit unions: Moody’s
Moody’s says new digital banks such as Volt, which received an Australian-first banking licence this week, will threaten credit unions and building societies. Credit unions and building societies’ lack of tech leadership means they are under threat from a new wave of digital banks, according to ratings agency Moody’s. Volt, co-founded by a former chief executive of mortgages at UK giant Barclays, this week became the first fintech granted a banking licence – allowing it to raise deposits up to a maximum $2 million. Moody’s Investors Service vice president Frank Mirenzi on Tuesday said the big four banks – ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac – were already […]
APRA grants first local digital licence to volt bank
The prudential regulator has signed off on Australia’s first-ever digital bank under a restricted licensing regime that aims to bolster industry competition. The Australian Financial Review revealed that Sydney-based volt bank had been granted a licence by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority early on Monday. APRA later confirmed that volt bank was authorised as a restricted authorised deposit-taking institution (RADI), while non-operating holding company volt Corporation Limited was also approved under the Banking Act 1959. Volt bank is led by former Barclays and National Australia Bank executive Steve Weston which he co-founded with former colleague Luke Bunbury. To date, volt has raised $15.7 million in equity capital via three funding […]
Andrew Thorburn explains the fintech forces reshaping NAB
The emergence of fintech has fundamentally changed National Australia Bank’s strategy and the thinking of its chief executive, Andrew Thorburn. He’s deploying more start-up lingo, and said last week the nation’s largest business lender is no longer benchmarking its performance against its rival banks, but rather technology players. Thorburn and his newish tech chief, Patrick Wright, who was previously with Barclays in the United States, went to Seattle and Silicon Valley last month and met with Amazon, Microsoft and Google for some inspiration. Like the tech giants themselves, NAB is pumping up technology spending with sums that would make wannabe disrupters salivate. With a plethora of start-ups nipping at NAB’s […]
Westpac says fintech partnerships paying off
Westpac’s $100 million investment in the Reinventure venture capital fund is paying off for the bank, according to group CEO Brian Hartzer. Reinventure has made 20 investments in areas including distributed ledger technology, payments, data analytics, digital currencies, social networking and P2P lending. Those investments are increasingly a strategic asset for Westpac, Hartzer told a briefing on the bank’s first half results. “These investments have helped build Westpac’s reputation as a good partner for fintech companies and this is now paying off in our core business,” the CEO said. He cited as an example the launch in April of Presto Smart, which integrates point-of-sale systems with merchant payment terminals. “Presto […]
