Morgan Stanley’s Jeffrey McMillan says collaboration is key in fintech
It makes more sense for a global banking giant such as Morgan Stanley to collaborate with innovative fintech start-ups than to try to be innovative itself, according to the bank’s chief analytics and data officer, Jeffrey McMillan. “Probably 75 per cent of our technology that we build is coming from the fintech sector,” Mr McMillan told The Economist’s Finance Disrupted conference in New York. “We don’t really want to be innovators — that’s not what we’re really good at. “We have $US2 trillion ($2.8 trillion) of assets, 2.2 million customers, 16,000 advisers and that’s our intellectual capital. But we’re not known for being nimble and quick. ”But the bank wants […]
ANZ, Wells Fargo test blockchain for cross-border payments
Blockchain technology promises to reduce the time and cost of transferring funds and increase access to liquidity, according to ANZ Banking Group and Wells Fargo. The companies made the comments following the completion of a six-month project that built and tested a distributed ledger for reconciling and settling payments between the two banks. In a recent report on their “proof on concept” the banks said blockchain could “add real value to both the customer experience and the efficiency” of correspondent banking relationships, which refers to deals between global banks over access to local payment systems. “Cross-border payments and correspondent banking are ripe for rejuvenation,” ANZ and Wells Fargo said, pointing […]
NAB is opening its data vaults for fintechs
NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn says he will support moves to require banks to share customer data, a key requirement for fintechs to compete with the big players. “We welcome competition,” he told the House of Representatives economics committee. “That’s how this bank has survived and competed for 150 years. “And now we’ve got new competition, fintechs that are coming at us and we welcome that too. You have to lift and get better and that’s good for customers.” Thorburn also supports greater account portability, where a customer could more easily move to a new bank without having to change automatic payments. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority […]
Australia leads the way in revolutionary blockchain technology
Good news on the #Innovation front! Australia leads the way in developing international standards for blockchain technology. Neil Buckland explains this new technology predicted to revolutionise practically anything! Australia leads the way for incorporated blockchain technology Blockchain technology has been in the news a lot recently. Many industries are even predicting it could be the future for the way in which they operate. Australia has recently received the go-ahead to develop the international standards of the technology; a move which Standards Australia says will create better market confidence and certainty. So what exactly is blockchain technology and how could it aid businesses? Understanding blockchain technology Blockchain technology is most commonly […]
Challenging the big banks
Atlassian’s co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes jokes that he loves the famous quote from Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos: “Your margin is my opportunity.” Bezos has created one of the world’s biggest and most successful retail giants using that approach. Atlassian’s spectacular global growth as a start-up software company from Australia shows that Cannon-Brookes has been able to adopt a similarly disruptive style. But one of Cannon-Brookes’ key targets in terms of taking advantage of margin and opportunity remains Australia’s big banks. It also made him an early supporter of Tyro Payments and now of chief executive Jost Stollman’s determination to challenge the power of the banks with Tyro’s new banking licence. To Cannon-Brookes, […]
New FinTech Uno Home Loans lands a $16.5 million investment from Westpac
New Australian FinTech company ‘Uno’ has landed a $16.5 million investment from Westpac after its success in the digital mortgage service in the past few months. The major bank investment is set to expand the company even further as customers are discovering the benefits of having a greater power in the home loan search process. Chief Strategy Officer at Westpac, Gary Thursby, said “uno’s success has been impressive and we’re seeing its potential to become a serious player in the home loan market”. Westpac has been involved with uno since the concept phase and Mr Thursby is pleased to announce the investment where Westpac will be a strategic investor at […]
Fintech moves in when banks fail their customers
In November the Monetary Authority of Singapore will hold a major fintech festival as part of the regulator’s push to promote financial services technology. It’s all part of what broker CLSA calls the Singapore government’s $35 billion campaign to promote technology in the country. A recent Ernst & Young report ranks Singapore fourth overall behind Britain, California and New York in terms of global fintech ecosystems. Australia came in fifth in the survey, behind Germany but ahead of Hong Kong. Australia ranked third behind Britain and Singapore in terms of fintech policy, including regulatory regimes and tax policy. It ranked fifth in terms of talent and capital and seventh in […]
ANZ Apple Pay users hit 250,000
Around a quarter of a million ANZ Banking Group customers are understood to be using Apple Pay, a number that exceeds the bank’s expectations four months after the service was launched. It’s also a number that’s set to rise, with ANZ to announce on Tuesday that its Mastercard customers are also able to load their credit cards into Apple’s digital wallet. Apple has restricted ANZ’s reporting of the number of cards that have been loaded onto Apple Pay since it jumped ahead of its rivals at the end of April and struck a deal with the tech giant to allow ANZ Visa and American Express cards to be loaded onto […]
