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 […]
Stone & Chalk fintechs integrate to unlock huge opportunities for advisers
Award winning fintechs from Stone & Chalk – Macrovue and Fincast – integrate to offer a comprehensive off-platform investment solution. Global thematic trading platform, Macrovue, and model portfolio management tool, Fincast, have teamed up to provide a game-changing solution for the wealth management industry. The integration of the two award-winning, next-generation solutions will provide advisers with the ability to automatically create tailored multi-asset class portfolios, matched to a client’s unique goals and risk profile and seamlessly execute the trades, all in under one hour. The solution will see a huge increase in efficiencies for advisers. Model portfolios teamed with seamless automation and execution will free-up advisers and […]
Acorns closes off the year with user growth and new features
Micro-investing app Acorns has amassed more than 160,000 sign ups since its Australian launch in February this year, with its phenomenal growth reflecting the appetite local consumers have for business to consumer FinTech. Acorns allows users to invest their virtual spare change into an investment portfolio, automatically rounding up transactions to the nearest dollar when purchasing on a credit or debit card. The app then allocates the spare change into one of five self-selected exchange traded fund (ETF) portfolios. Since February, the total amount invested by Australians into Acorns through just their round-up transactions has reached $13.5 million. Further, the total amount saved from recurring deposits into the […]
Australia needs to foster FinTech with level playing field
The recent Presidential election in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK clearly show that the public in liberal democracies like Australia are tired of failure by governments to ensure social justice is being served on all levels. Political and corporate leaders appear to the public to act with impunity and social policies are not addressing the increasing inequality of wealth. These leaders seem to be out of touch with their constituents, illustrated by the surprise results in US and UK. Leaders in Australia should be warned — they ignore, at their peril, social justice issues such as the behaviour of the ‘Big Four’ banks, who operate in […]
Exchange trade funds to over take listed investment companies by 2018
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are poised to overtake listed investment companies as the most popular pooled investment option on the ASX within two years if current trends persist. ASX data for November shows that the value of ETFs rose by 17 per cent to $24.5 billion, while the value of listed investment companies rose just 2.3 per cent to $30.5 billion. Experts point to the increasing sophistication of investors, regulatory change, growing numbers of ETF strategies available at low cost and the rise of the self-managed super fund as among the key forces driving ETF fund flows. Listed investment companies, which have a long history of performing for retail funds, […]
5 Tips For Better Understanding Peer-to-Peer Property Lending in Australia
As a bumper year for property investment comes to a close, emerging trends towards non-bank finance in the property space gather steam heading into the new year. Developers need more funds to deliver their projects as the major banks pull back on finance. As more investors get comfortable with researching higher yielding investment opportunities, we take a look at the key things you need to know about ‘Peer-to-Peer’ (P2P) debt-style lending in the Australian property market. Don’t Chase High Returns If a debt offering is returning 18-30% and is a mezzanine type, deal chances are it is extremely risky. A developer is only paying this pain money as a […]
Returns on IPOs Jump in 2016
Year-to-date returns on Australian Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) sat at an impressive 35.8% as at November 30, compared to just 2.7% for the S&P/ASX200, a sign of a healthy company float market, according to Ben Bucknell, Chief Executive of OnMarket BookBuilds (OMB). The OnMarket November IPO Report reveals over the month of November, 12 companies raised a total $1.95 billion by floating on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), well up on the five listings in November 2015 which raised $558 million. The average return on those IPOs was 5.2%, a 2.8% outperformance of the S&P/ASX 200. Ben Bucknell, Chief Executive of OnMarket BookBuilds (OMB), said it has been a good […]
Startup founders say crowdfunding delays are an ‘extreme embarrassment’
Startup founders have hit out at the Labor Party for its refusal to support the passage of a long-awaited crowd sourced equity funding (CSEF) bill, resulting in the legislation being pushed back until February at the earliest. The move from Labor, which was led by digital economy spokesman Ed Husic, comes a week after the bill was introduced to Parliament for a second time, having already been knocked back in December 2015. The new bill, if eventually passed, means unlisted public companies with less than $25 million in assets and turnover would be able to raise capital via crowd-sourced equity funding. A spokesperson for Treasurer Scott Morrison told Fairfax Media […]
