ANZ Bank ups cloud focus with open networks for fintech collaboration
ANZ Banking Group has upped the ante in its adoption of cloud-based services in order to pursue a more flexible technology strategy, with Netflix-developed software to stop outages and the door left open to collaborate more openly with emerging fintech start-ups. The bank’s general manager of consumer digital technology Christian Venter told The Australian Financial Review it has significantly increased its use of cloud platforms – most notably the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud – to host more dynamic content on its websites and mobile apps, and was designing new systems that would allow access for data sharing with external organisations. The move to open up systems comes amid a […]
Banks to develop new digital cash unit for settlement
Four of the world’s biggest banks have teamed up to develop a new form of digital cash they believe will become an industry standard to clear and settle financial trades using blockchain, the technology underpinning bitcoin. UBS, the Swiss bank, pioneered the “utility settlement coin” and has now joined forces with Deutsche Bank, Santander and BNY Mellon – as well as the broker ICAP – to pitch the idea to central banks, aiming for its commercial launch by early 2018. The move is the first example of a group of leading banks coming together to co-operate on a specific blockchain technology to harness the power of decentralised computer networks and […]
Coles backs Westpac, CommBank, NAB, and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank in Apple Pay fight
Retailers including Coles have thrown their support behind a push by several big banks to put their rivalry aside and negotiate as a bloc with Apple over its digital payments service. Apple’s current constraints on “digital wallets” provided on the iPhone threaten to stifle innovation and competition, the retail industry’s peak body told the competition watchdog. In what the banks say is a world first, Westpac, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank are seeking an exemption from competition laws so they can negotiate as one, and launch a collective boycott of Apple Pay. The move, if approved, is intended to pressure the technology giant to allow […]
CBA accused of blocking fintech Acorns in password row
Commonwealth Bank of Australia has sent alarming emails to thousands of its customers who are engaging with fintech start-ups, warning that sharing internet banking passwords could invalidate the protection CBA provides from losses on accounts relating to fraud. But Acorns, which is competing with the banks’ retail wealth divisions, says CBA’s communication is designed to slow its rapid growth and thereby reduce competition. CBA is “cloaking with security messages a way of being anti-competitive to the whole fintech industry,” said George Lucas, chief executive of Acorns in Australia. “It is strategically targeted at fintechs they now see are growing, and we are a major driver of that.” Acorns, a US-based company that helps users invest spare change in exchange traded funds, has been growing its Australian users at around 2500 each week to around 130,000 since its local launch in February. Around 70 per cent […]
Banks resist fintech push for open data regime
If banks were required to open their customer data to competitors, economic growth would be bolstered through financial services competition and customer service would be improved by allowing fintech companies to create better-priced financial products, argues Fintech Australia, an industry group representing financial technology start-ups. The Productivity Commission’s review into ‘Data availability and use’ is looking at whether a system of “open APIs” [application programming interfaces] could be created along the lines of a new regime in Britain to allow competitors to plug directly into data sets held by banks, such as transaction account activity. Fintech Australia has asked the commission to recommend an “open banking API” regime be mandated […]
Apple Pay: Banks ask for help from ACCC in fight over digital payments
The big four banks are used to being the big guys in town, but Apple is bigger than all of them combined. Apple has made its name and fortune on a closed system and Apple Pay, a mobile payment service and digital wallet, is another platform that does not connect with the systems of other providers. That has become the sticking point with the banks, which have been developing their own ‘e-wallet’ offerings that Apple is refusing to accept. “This is what they’re concerned about. It’s not really about consumer choice. It’s about maintaining their monopoly position on these interchange fees and maintaining control of their consumers,” said Dr David […]
SocietyOne’s Jason Yetton backs Maile Carnegie on fintech disruption threat
The former head of Westpac’s retail bank Jason Yetton has backed the call by ANZ’s new head of digital banking Maile Carnegie, who says that big banks will have to lift the pace of innovation in order to fend off disruption from fintech companies seeking a slice of their billions of dollars of profits. In his first speech as chief executive of peer-to-peer lender SocietyOne five months into the job, Mr Yetton said that UBS’s recent forecast of growth in P2P lending activity over the next 12 months of between 47 per cent and 150 per cent was an “increasing possibility” given recent market traction. Australian banks would be disrupted […]
P2P lifts in popularity amid miserable year for banks
With deposit rates at low levels and the local share market still choppy, peer-to-peer lending has become an interesting alternative for Australian investors over the last few years. But some cracks in the model appeared in the US recently when one of the biggest peer-to-peer platforms was caught up in a scandal that it is now scrambling to fix, offering a warning for the Australian industry about the importance of transparency. LendingClub had been seen as one of the leading lights of this space in the US, amid a range of players that use technology to match investors with borrowers, cutting out the overheads incurred by banks and aiming to […]
