Brighte shines a light on new finance options
Innovative fintech companies have an opportunity to offer services banks can’t or won’t provide. Here’s how Brighte is doing that with interest-free finance for home improvements. Imagine having your hot water system break down and being told you need a replacement. How would you pay for it? What about if you want to install solar power but find the interest charges send your budget through the roof? It’s these types of issues that fintech startup Brighte is designed to address. Launched in 2016, the company offers homeowners an interest-free payment solution for home improvements up to $30,000. Company founder Katherine McConnell said this type of finance hasn’t been looked at […]
Australian Fintech companies amongst 2017 Finder Awards
Once again the 2017 Finder Awards was dominated by Australian Fintech companies, like they have done in previous years. Congratulations to all the Fintech winners: Best Investor Home Loan (PI 3-Year Fixed) UBank UHomeLoan Best P2P Personal Loan RateSetter 2 Year Personal Loan Best Personal Loan Pepper Money Unsecured Variable Personal Loan Best Personal Finance App Acorns Best Online Customer Service UBank Best Banking Innovation Spriggy Most Innovative Team Mario Hasanakos & Alex Badran, founders of Spriggy
SocietyOne takes leadership role on comprehensive credit reporting
SocietyOne, Australia’s pioneering and leading consumer finance marketplace lender, announced that it will provide positive consumer credit information to credit bureaus as part of the move to establish a fully-fledged comprehensive credit reporting (CCR) regime in Australia. SocietyOne will start sending secure data on its customers’ positive credit history in “public” mode from November 2017. With the Federal Government planning to toughen up the country’s existing CCR legislation in 2018, SocietyOne has thrown down the challenge to the major banks to quickly get on board with CCR and help all Australians get a better deal from their credit providers. Among the big four banks, National Australia Bank recently announced that […]
Melbourne ‘buy now, pay later’ fintech Openpay just raised $10 million and cancelled IPO
Openpay has completed a $10 million capital raising round, and revealed it has cancelled plans for an initial public offering. The $10 million, which was originally marked as a pre-IPO round, came from “a group of investors” that included existing backer Meydan Group, as well as Investec and SL Investments Group. The company did not comment on the reasons for cancelling the IPO plans. Business Insider understands that chief executive Simon Scalzo departed the company in August after less than a year at the helm, with chairperson Avi Schechter currently acting as the public face of the fintech. The latest investment also sees Investec head of emerging companies David Phillips […]
Australia a target for international fintechs
Australia’s wealth management industry is an attractive prospect for foreign technology firms and will likely see international players enter the market in coming years, a Microsoft report has found. The Moving Past Prosperity report, which the tech giant conducted in conjunction with Harvard Business Review, said that while payments and lending dominate the Australian fintech landscape, wealth management technology is growing rapidly, according to KPMG data. “Australia hosts the world’s sixth largest pool of funds under management, substantially filled by its compulsory superannuation scheme,” the report said. “With its potential for scale and cost savings through robo-advice, wealth management is expected to attract many international entrants.” Added to this is […]
Fintech startup, Trade Ledger, launches world-first tech to help banks fight off global tech giants
Career technologists, Martin McCann and Dr. Matthias Born, are launching a world-first lending tech for banks and traditional lenders that will help to equip them against competition from tech giants such as Facebook, Tencent, and eBay wanting to enter financial services. Trade Ledger is the world’s first business lending platform that transforms digital data from business supply chains in real time, allowing banks to assess and regularly update credit and default risk of businesses they lend to. Currently this is only done on a one-off or infrequent basis on a very small sample of invoices, and not on any other trade documents. The platform will finally give banks more advanced network and data […]
Backing local talent to build the Australian FinTech sector
New scholarship announced to grow future FinTech leaders FinTech may be the talk of the town, but it’s nothing if it doesn’t move forward. To ensure the industry keeps innovating, and to give back to the country supporting their battle against the ‘big dogs’ of the FinTech world, Nifty Personal Loans (Nifty) has launched a scholarship program. To pave the way for the business and finance leaders of tomorrow, Nifty has announced that they will be giving one Bachelor or Masters Business, Finance or IT student a helping hand in the form of a $2500 lump sum each semester which can be used for university fees, resources and technology, research materials […]
Afterpay surges as sales head for $1.5b
Lay-by payments service Afterpay Touch says its underlying annualised sales are on track to surpass $1.5 billion as more major brands sign up. The fintech’s first quarter sales hit $367 million, up from $271 million in the fourth quarter of 2016/17, and comes after Target, Luxottica and Petbarn recently adopted its online payments system. Shares in Afterpay jumped 48 cents, or 10.2 per cent, to $5.18 on the company’s quarterly sales update. Afterpay says more than 8,600 merchants are now on board, up from about 6,000 on June 30. And more brands are expected to join up in the second quarter. “Significant development of partnership and platform initiatives in the […]
