Blockchain and others will transform financial advice
The potential for distributed ledger and associated technologies has fundamental, long-term ramifications for financial planning businesses. Planners need to be across these innovations now so that when commercial solutions that use these technologies hit the market, their businesses are ready to embrace them. Distributed ledger technology is a way of recording information that makes it easy to verify. Blockchain, which is the system that records how the virtual currency Bitcoin is stored, is one application of this technology. Shortened Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) transaction settlement times will likely be the first real change to the market from Blockchain. Last year, the ASX invested $14.9 million to acquire 5 per cent […]
Westpac’s Reinventure buys tech start-up Doshii
The Westpac-backed venture fund Reinventure has splashed its cash on Melbourne-based payments platform start-up Doshii, a spin-off of Australian point-of-sale vendor Impos. Westpac is the largest investor in Reinventure, which recently launched a second $50 million fund to invest in about a dozen Australian technology ventures. It comes amid a broader trend of Australia’s biggest banks investing in fintech companies aiming to disrupt the payments market, which has so far produced mixed results for the incumbent financial giants. Doshii is the country’s only application programming interface company, and gives app developers a common platform that works with hundreds of point-of-sale systems. Its aim is to overcome a problem in the […]
Scott Morrison backs robo-advisers to cheap superannuation advice to retirees
Treasurer Scott Morrison has endorsed “robo-advisers” offering cheap automated superannuation advice as the next step in Australia’s financial industry, and urged consumers to overcome their privacy fears about business and governments sharing personal data. As the Turnbull government continues to battle controversy over Centrelink’s “robo-debt” letters, Mr Morrison has been spruiking to his international counterparts the commercial and economic opportunities of automated services and sharing consumers’ data. “One of the prime examples is robo-advice, which has the potential to offer financial advice to a wider cross‑section of the community,” Mr Morrison told at a G20 conference in Germany. “In Australia, businesses are beginning to integrate robo-advice into the retirement savings […]
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 […]
One country dominates the global bitcoin market
Almost all bitcoin trading is done in China. The share of the cryptocurrency that’s traded via China’s mainland currency escalated over the past few years, overtaking the US dollar as the dominant currency. From less than a 10% share in January 2012, the yuan now makes up nearly 100% of all bitcoin trading. Bitcoin surged 120% last year, outperforming every other currency in the world. It kicked off 2017 by rising above $1,000 for the first time since 2013.Those moves were made possible largely because of China. Volumes of bitcoin trading increased as China’s foreign reserves shrank, by about 8% to $3.05 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile, the yuan weakened against […]
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 […]
Australian FinTech will exceed AUD $4 Billion by 2020
A new report has found that FinTech revenue in Australia is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 76.3 percent and exceed A$4 billion by 2020. The research, Australian Fintech, Forecast for 2020, found that this increase was down to a reduction in taxes on investments in startups, tech-savvy digital individuals, and a rise in mobile payments. According to Research and Markets, in 2015 the Australian FinTech market produced A$247.2 million with 2016 generating further growth and 2017 predicted to continue the upward trend. The research found that there are three areas that financial technology services are focusing on in Australia that will grow by 2020: […]
Investec funding for H2’s fintech accelerator backed by NSW government
Niche lender Investec has increased its funding facility for the fintech accelerator H2 Ventures by $4 million, in a deal that has been partially underwritten by the NSW government, which says it is willing to provide more guarantees to encourage venture capital funding. H2 Ventures says it remains committed to raising an unlisted, $30 million fintech investment fund this year, after it was forced to pull the ASX float of H2Ocean last October despite the backing of high-profile technology industry investors when it failed to raise minimum subscription levels. The unlisted version will invest in several of the 40 new fintech start-ups that will enter the H2 accelerator over the […]
