Westpac creates data accelerator
Westpac Banking Corp has created a “data accelerator” to build new technology businesses from anonymised data sets, and will offer access to it to institutional banking clients seeking to turn data into assets. FUELD, which has been set up in partnership with Stone & Chalk, will provide early-stage start-ups access to the Data Republic data-sharing platform. Westpac’s venture capital fund, Reinventure Group, is an investor in Data Republic. The accelerator will be run by the former CEO of Fishburners, Murray Hurps. Macgregor Duncan, Westpac’s co-head of business development, said start-ups which could emerge from the program may examine new credit models and applications for algorithmic real-time property valuations. Start-ups will […]
ASIC’s Greg Medcraft says traditional bank accounts may be obsolete in a decade
Bank accounts could become unnecessary within the next decade because central banks will create digital currencies and allow customers to hold deposits directly with them, predicts Greg Medcraft, chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The issuance by central banks of digital versions of their fiat currencies onto distributed ledgers would lead to widespread disaggregation for commercial banks, which would be forced to fight much harder to attract funding alongside market-based funds in a radical upheaval of financial markets. Banks and policy makers should be studying the ramifications for the Australian economy given central bank-issued digital currencies could start to appear globally in the next five to 10 years, […]
Cryptocurrencies are new barbarians at the gate of central banks
When the cryptocurrency Exio Coin starts a round of fundraising on September 7, its founders say the unit will come with a unique distinction: the first to be endorsed by a sovereign nation. The identity of the government backer won’t be revealed until October, and Bloomberg News has no way of verifying the claim of support. According to co-founder Sunny Johnson though, the supporter is one of “the world’s richest countries” on a per capita basis. The claim of official approval highlights how the boom in cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology is becoming too big for central banks, long the guardian of official money, to ignore. From speculative betting to […]
Australia’s CommBank arms combine to launch robo-advice service
Two units of Australia’s largest bank have teamed up to launch a ‘robo-for-adviser’ portal aimed at financial advisers servicing high net worth clients. CommSec Adviser Services, the adviser support arm of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA / CommBank), and Colonial First State, part of the CBA’s global asset management business, will jointly provide the new system, named Portfolio Service. The service will offer a ‘one-stop-shop’ online that aims to enable advisers to manage their clients’ investments by automating administration and reporting requirements. Designed for the fee-for-service business models, the system can be customised to support specific advice fee structures and is offered by both firms. Better service CommSec Adviser […]
Visa moves to kill PINs by pushing Aussie banks towards biometric authentication
Consumers will soon be able to forget about PINs and frustratingly long 16-digit card numbers when shopping online and in the real world, as Visa moves to make Australian banks build infrastructure and put in place policies to empower biometrically-authenticated transactions. A new Visa security roadmap outlines a four-year process for Australian banks to adopt new standards for e-commerce transactions, designed to streamline the purchasing process and reduce fraud, while implementing new information-sharing practices and tokenisation technology. Visa Asia-Pacific senior vice-president Joe Cunningham told The Australian Financial Review it aimed to make the purchasing process simpler and quicker for shoppers, while also making it more secure. “What we want to […]
Broker channel needs to be ‘undercut’, says fintech boss
The founder of an online mortgage marketplace says there is too much “fat” in the home loan value chain and believes there is space for a non-advice model in mortgage distribution. Joust managing director Mark Bevan, who worked at CBA and Westpac before launching the online mortgage bidding platform in 2015, said that Joust is focused on lowering the cost of origination for lenders and borrowers. Joust targets Australian borrowers with good credit scores and simple needs. While he understands that customers with more complex needs will require the services of mortgage brokers, Mr Bevan believes that his model offers a cheaper alternative to traditional third-party distribution. “The mortgage broker […]
The rise of cashless society – is your business listening to your customers?
You will often hear a small business owner complain about the banks ‘taking their cut’ of every transaction. The cost of having a transaction machine can feel like a big expense for some businesses; and many then pass those costs onto their customers in the form of surcharges. However, with the introduction of tap and go technology comes numerous cost-effective options available to the small business owner – and Australian customers are loving them; a recent survey by the RFI Group reveals that 32 per cent of Australians believed they could go cashless. The same survey shows that Australia currently has the highest use of contactless tap and go cards […]
The future will be fuelled by data
The digital disruption rippling through business and government today is merely a curtain raiser for what comes next. The combination of artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain technologies and quantum computing will usher in new operating models, new industries, new possibilities. The future will be fuelled by data and technologies that harvest, protect, analyse and take action based on that information. Professor Mary-Anne Williams, director of the innovation and enterprise research lab at the University of Technology, Sydney, believes that cognitive computing is already a game-changer. “Cognitive computing is able to convert vast volumes of complex data into decision-making models that can be used take action autonomously without human oversight or intervention. […]
