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 […]
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 […]
GROW Super reduces its fees
The move comes just three weeks after rival super fund Spaceship dropped its fees. New super fund GROW Super has today announced it’s lowering its fees and introducing new features to the way its members can select their insurance cover. Since launching in May, the new fund which has been initially targeting Australian millennials has successfully attracted over 12,000 members. Until now the boutique fund has charged a fee of 1.85% p.a. on your investment; quite high compared to many other funds, and especially for a new player. From today GROW Super will charge a much more competitive fee of 0.95% plus $1.65 per week. The move comes just three […]
GPS robo-adviser launches
Plenty Wealth, a robo-adviser that combines human advice has officially launched. Co-founders Josh Golombick and Greg Einfeld said Plenty Wealth provides a financial roadmap and acts like a “GPS service” in terms of financial goals, covering automated advice from budgeting and cash flows, to insurance, property and investments. One of the biggest advantages of an algorithm is that the results are transparent and cannot be swayed by human bias and conflicts, said Einfeld, who helped develop the algorithms based on his 20 years of working in the superannuation and wealth management industries. “What’s more, they allow us to produce quality advice on demand and bring the cost down to nothing,” […]
How the Rich Invest: Owen Kerr is making huge profits in forex with Pepperstone
Profits at Owen Kerr’s foreign exchange broker Pepperstone have surged in the 2017 financial year, as the company enjoyed a large increase in clients from Asia. Pepperstone’s earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) surged 99 per cent to a record $96.7 million from $166 million revenue. Net profit for the firm reached $71.2 million after the Melbourne-based company paid about $25 million in tax, documents recently filed with the corporate regulator revealed. The 2017 results were more than double from the previous year, during which Pepperstone had made a net profit of about $34 million from $96 million revenue and EBIT of $48 million. It also means Pepperstone’s valuation could […]
Bitcoin is sliding after bitcoin gold goes live
Bitcoin is trading down 4.5% Wednesday following a split in the cryptocurrency’s blockchain network. Bitcoin gold, the new digital coin formed by the split Tuesday morning, follows the bitcoin-bitcoin cash fork in August. The project website for bitcoin gold is down following a DDoS attack, according to cryptocurrency watcher CoinDesk. The bitcoin community is split over whether forks are good or bad for bitcoin. Bitcoin, the red-hot digital currency up more than 400% this year, was trading down 4.42% Wednesday morning after the blockchain network underpinning the coin split again. As reported by cryptocurrency watcher CoinDesk, bitcoin gold officially split from the bitcoin network Wednesday morning. The new cryptocurrency is a clone of the original bitcoin blockchain, […]
