SocietyOne appoints John Cummins as Chief Investment Officer
SocietyOne, Australia’s pioneering and leading lending marketplace, has appointed John Cummins to the new role of Chief Investment Officer, a position which reflects the critical importance of its investor funders to the company’s future growth. John will have responsibility for all of SocietyOne’s funding requirements to support demand from an expanding number of borrower customers. This will include building on SocietyOne’s existing network of investor funders who include large financial institutions, mutual banks, credit unions, high net worth individuals and SMSFs. John will also play a key role in helping the company to achieve its five-year goals of expanding and deepening its funding base to support growth in borrower customers […]
US fintech SoFi targets mortgage lending in Australia
One of the best-funded financial technology companies in the US, SoFi, is preparing to launch in Australia to offer mortgages in direct competition with the banks. In recent days, the San Francisco-based SoFi has used LinkedIn to advertise for a manager of mortgage operations, based in Sydney, along with an operations manager and a marketing manager. The pending opening in Sydney would be SoFi’s first office outside the US, where it has funded more than $US7 billion in student loan refinancing, personal loans and mortgages since it was founded in 2011. Over the past two years, SoFi, which used to be called Social Finance, has raised $1 billion in new […]
Top 5 Fintech and Banking Trends for 2017
FinTech Competition Will Drive Banking Transformation FinTech companies are competing with banks on a number of levels including peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, lending, saving, and investing. Banks should especially be worried about the fact that 33% of millennials don’t believe they’ll need a bank in the next 5 years, and almost 75% of millennials reported that they are more interested in financial offerings from Google and Amazon that from traditional nationwide banks. For banks to continue to compete, they’ll need to make sure they are providing better services and customer experiences than both their bank competitors, but also upstart FinTech companies. Continued Shift From In-Branch to Digital Channels Millennials are […]
FinTech: UK Vs Australia
by Matthew Parker, The MitchelLake Group Having recently moved from the UK to Australia, I have been excited to observe and experience first-hand some of the differences between the UK FinTech ecosystem and that of its Antipodean cousin. I do not, by any means, pretend to be an expert, but I have had the privilege of working with and alongside some of the most exciting FinTech businesses and individuals across multiple markets. Any observation I am able to draw comes from a place of passion and sincere enthusiasm as well as a helpful dose of experience. So without further ado, let’s compare and contrast. The UK hit its stride at […]
Neu Capital ready to disrupt mid-market fundraising
While Cyrus Church and Edward Jones were working for Royal Bank of Scotland in Sydney offloading corporate loan portfolios in the wake of the financial crisis, the opacity of fundraising for mid-market companies became starkly apparent. Church recalls large sales of RBS loans such as Royal North Shore Hospital and the Cross City Tunnel running smoothly as “they were clean processes, the universe of investors was known and the information quality was sound. But as soon as you delve into some of the smaller, mid-market companies, it was extremely clunky and manual. We thought: surely there is a way to use technology to make the process more efficient?” Inspired by […]
Luxury Escapes books its dream holiday with zipMoney
Partnership between leading Australian travel retailer and digital payments platform enables Australians the option to travel now and pay later. Luxury Escapes announced it had become the largest Australian travel retailer to partner with ASX-listed zipMoney Limited (ASX: ZML) and is now offering Australians the option to travel now and pay later. Luxury Escapes General Manager, Blake Hutchison, said the agreement with zipMoney meant Luxury Escapes’ million-plus members now have the flexibility to book their holiday today and pay over time in interest-free instalments. “Luxury Escapes is delighted to partner with zipMoney to simplify our members’ online travel booking experience,” Mr Hutchison said. “We want every […]
SocietyOne hits $200m milestone as growth accelerates
Total lending reaches $200 million since inception after record month in November Loan book up 315% in 2016 to $126 million Record quarter of lending in the three months to December 2016 New Chief Marketing Officer appointed SocietyOne, Australia’s leading and fastest-growing marketplace lender, has achieved another key milestone after breaking through the $200 million lending mark. The last three months of the 2016 calendar year have witnessed the strongest growth in the company’s four-year history with an additional $50 million of lending made between the first weeks of September and mid-December. November saw a record month of more than $15.3 million in lending. That took the total […]
Reckon Loans breaks $1Million milestone
Australian cloud accounting software provider Reckon (ASX:RKN) has announced its new Reckon Loans (powered by Prospa) platform has funded over $1million to small businesses, proving the online lending market is growing at an extraordinary pace. In partnership with Prospa, Australia’s leading online lender to small businesses, Reckon Loans provides SME’s a fast and simple service with approvals and funding of loans from $5,000 to $250,000 available within one business day. Reckon Group COO Dan Rabie said Reckon Loans is a disrupter in the fintech space, adding diversity and removing the red tape from the small-business loans market. “This is a significant milestone for our business and clearly shows there’s a […]
