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, […]
Samsung Pay locks up the “big four” after new partnership with National Australia Bank
Samsung Pay has become the first mobile wallet provider to lock up the “big four” banks after today announcing a partnership with the last of the major institutions – the National Australian Bank. NAB customers now join those from Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ to use Samsung Pay to make payments with compatible Samsung smartphones, Samsung smartwatches and other wearables. Customers can load their Visa credit and/or debit card and pay securely anywhere credit cards are accepted. Apart from the big four banks, Samsung Pay works with more than 45 other financial institutions around Australia. Samsung has made good on its promise to provide its customers with a simple and […]
The data rush is on as start-ups get set for open banking
Paul Chapman believes banking is only going to get more complex. “We like to say Japan is living in the future,” he says. “People have a very fragmented life with three to four banks and several different financial products. There is so much complexity and we think that is happening in Australia.” The Australian co-founder of financial management app Moneytree, which is based in Japan and launched in Australia last year, is one of a number of start-ups jostling for position as the government looks to introduce open banking to Australia. Speaking to Fairfax Media on the sidelines of the Salesforce World Tour in Sydney this month, he said open […]
Xinja launches card and app, gets set to challenge Australia’s banking market
Xinja, which is building the first Australian, independent, 100% digital ‘neobank’, has launched its prepaid travel and everyday spending card and its app. The card is a prepaid, tap-and-go card, with no ATM fees here or overseas, and low international transaction/FX fees that make it a very competitive travel card. The app allows users to lock the card instantly, if it is lost, and is being designed to let users track their spending, with more features to be rolled out over the next few months. The card is being sent out to Xinja’s waitlist, made up of consumers who have signed up to be part of the development of a […]
SMEs trading banks for fintechs, poll suggests
Fintech and other non-bank lenders are set to overtake banks as the preferred source of growth funds for Australian SMEs, the latest Scottish Pacific SME Growth Index suggest. The twice-yearly poll was informed by interviews with more than 1250 SMEs with annual revenues of up to $5 million. Scottish Pacific found that between 2014 and 2018, the proportion of SMEs intending to use banks for funding dropped from 38% to 24%. Meanwhile, 22% of SMEs identified non-bank lenders as their preferred source of growth funds, up from 11% in 2014. In addition, it was revealed that amongst SMEs that have not used non-banking lending options in the past 12 months, […]
What is a Neobank and what can it do for me?
Australia’s big bank monopolisation might finally be getting a kick up the butt. This article is supported by Xinja, who are building the first Australian 100 percent digital bank designed for mobile. In this series, we look at our relationship to money. It’s a very familiar story: at various times through the year, the big banks take turns in announcing another round of record-breaking profits. Last year the big four earned a combined $31 billion in profit. That’s $58,980 a minute. Unsurprisingly, the people that run these behemoth moneymakers do quite nicely for themselves as well. Australia’s highest paid banking CEO, Nicholas Moore, made a whopping $18.2 million last year. […]
Fintech vs Banking: Which sector controls the future of money?
There could be trouble ahead at the top of the financial market arena. In the red corner is Banking — one of the world’s most pre-eminent industries represented by a handful of stalwart banks, who’ve been around for centuries and considered the bedrock of a modern financially-savvy society. In the blue corner is Technology — in the form of a cloud of hovering tech firms, buzzing around consumers and serving up the most connectible and value-added premium products ever seen. Most innovations that have improved financial services have been down to “financial technology” or “fintech” for short. Separating the two is a wall of compliance and a patchwork of regulatory […]
Fintech – The evolution of modern financial technology in the 21st Century
Financial procedures have evolved drastically over the last 100 years. We have seen a huge change in how many aspects of finance are processed such as payments, investment, data storage and types of currency. A term that has sprung up in the last couple of decades and gained prominence is ‘Fintech’ – this articles details exactly what Fintech is, and why it is essential for the modern world. What is Fintech ? Fintech = financial technology This is the basic meaning. Fintech is much more than that however – it is any new type of innovative technology that competes with or precedes traditional financial methods; particularly the delivery of financial […]
