The changing landscape of crowdfunding in Australia
When Aussie start-up, Nura, wanted to raise funds to help launch its hi-tech, self-adjusting headphones onto the global market, it turned to crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. The groundbreaking Nuraphones attracted the support of over 7,000 ‘backers’ who pledged money in return for early access to the product, netting Nura over US$1.8 million and breaking records for an Australian crowd-funding campaign. Recent decisions by the Australian Government to expand the use of crowd-funding for equity raising, initially by public companies and now potentially by SMEs and start-ups, could make a huge difference for companies seeking capital for growth and expansion. The first round of legislation came into force last month, allowing licensed […]
Biggest winners from fintech are customers
The biggest winners from fintech are the customers as it revolutionalises customer engagement and removes institutional, bureaucratic impediments, according to Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison. Addressing the Financial Services Council’s (FSC’s) and BT’s breakfast event in Sydney on Monday, the Treasurer said fintech was not just transformational for financial services but for all businesses around the country. “The technology is exciting. It can be distracting, it can sometimes over promise and under deliver. But at the same time it’s hard not to appreciate the potential,” he said. “And like any new sector where innovation arrives, there are misfires, there are misstarts. But it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the […]
Change Financial partners in Blockchain & cryptocurrency business solution
Change Financial Limited announces it has entered an in-principle agreement to develop an innovative blockchain and cryptocurrency technology to provide solutions for the $1,250 trillion global payments market [1]. Continuing with its vision to create a ‘better way of banking by utilising innovative and leading technology’, the Company is investing in a partnership to develop a blockchain-based cryptocurrency for business transactions over $10,000. The cryptocurrency will embed critical Know Your Customer (“KYC”) information and transaction-specific payment identification data. The partnership is a natural progression for Change Financial, which has already developed an internal blockchain-based ledger system as part of its consumer banking and Enterprise SaaS offering. The Company […]
Data revolution to transform four pillars model
You’re browsing through Facebook when a message pops up, asking if you’d like to check whether you’re getting a decent interest rate on your savings. Curious, you tap the screen to find out more. It asks you to provide a bit more information about your financial goals – you’re saving for a deposit on a house and hope to buy in about two years. You are then asked to give consent to securely share some key bits of financial information online: your income over the last six months, and your spending over this period. Within seconds, the app has a recommendation: it’s found a bank account and term deposit that […]
New advice fintech WealthO2 doubles FUA in 3 months
WealthO2, the fintech for financial advisers, has doubled in funds under administration between June 2017 and October 2017.
Investment platform Stake opens the US floodgates for self-managed super accounts
Stake, the fintech platform redesigning investing for Australians, today announced the beta launch of Stake Premium, which gives self-managed superannuation funds direct access to commission-free US share trading for the first time. Stake has also appointed Matthew Rady, a global financial markets expert and former IRESS executive, as Head of Business Development to help expand Stake into new services and offerings for investors and prospective partners. Stake Premium takes the features already available to Stake members — zero brokerage, paperless sign-up and a powerful dashboard to discover and buy US shares at any amount — and makes it available to the $700 billion SMSF market in Australia to help diversify […]
Treasurer rules out further super changes
Future reforms to superannuation appear to be off the table, as the Treasurer sets his eyes on the fintech scene. Speaking at the FSC BT Political Series, Treasurer Scott Morrison said revisiting changes to superannuation was not the way he preferred to “do business”. “I hope people will pick up one thing from the way I like to do business,” said Mr Morrison. “Once I go into a particular area and seek to make change, I seek to do it once and for all. I tend not to go and revisit it. “We made some major changes to superannuation, I’ve made some major changes in previous portfolios on pensions, made […]
Cards are going to go away, says Citigroup CEO Mike Corbat
It’s a testament to his pragmatism, but Michael Corbat, the chief executive of Citigroup, the world’s biggest issuer of credit cards, is quite happy to concede that the popular financial product is doomed to extinction. “We know, at some point, cards are going to go away”, Corbat says in an exclusive interview with The Australian Financial Review, “and it’s just going to be digital wallet, digital payments.” This is why Citi is putting a major emphasis on “fintech” – from cutting-edge banking apps for mobile phones through to blockchain, artificial intelligence and robotics, to forging partnership with big players such as Alipay, Amazon and WeChat – to make sure that […]
