Prospa first Australian fintech to deliver a half billion dollars of small business loans
Prospa, Australia’s number one online lender for small business, has announced the delivery of more than half a billion dollars into the economy, providing loans to over 12,000 small businesses across the country. Now in its sixth year, Prospa has scaled rapidly, today placing second in the Fast 100 for 2017 thanks a 239 per cent average revenue growth since 2013-14. The AFR’s Fast 100 ranks the fastest growing companies in Australia, and in previous years has included the likes of Atlassian, Lonely Planet, SEEK and WebJet. 2017 has been been a bumper year for Prospa, having secured over $50m in equity and debt funding. The firm announced […]
Brighte shines a light on new finance options
Innovative fintech companies have an opportunity to offer services banks can’t or won’t provide. Here’s how Brighte is doing that with interest-free finance for home improvements. Imagine having your hot water system break down and being told you need a replacement. How would you pay for it? What about if you want to install solar power but find the interest charges send your budget through the roof? It’s these types of issues that fintech startup Brighte is designed to address. Launched in 2016, the company offers homeowners an interest-free payment solution for home improvements up to $30,000. Company founder Katherine McConnell said this type of finance hasn’t been looked at […]
Jacaranda Incubator Program – Backing Australian Fintech
Jacaranda Finance is on the hunt for Australia’s most exciting, high growth potential Fintech startup, establishing the Jacaranda Incubator Program. Background Jacaranda Finance is one of the fastest growing financial technology start-ups in Australia. With the recent launch of the new and improved Jacaranda decisioning engine, the young startup analyses vast quantities of data from numerous data sources within seconds. This allows the company to make smarter credit decisions and expand the availability of fair, affordable, responsible and more transparent credit solutions for consumers. “It’s no longer hard, expensive or impossible to acquire and process large volumes of data relating to our applicants”, says Daniel Wessels, CEO of Jacaranda. […]
Australian Fintech companies amongst 2017 Finder Awards
Once again the 2017 Finder Awards was dominated by Australian Fintech companies, like they have done in previous years. Congratulations to all the Fintech winners: Best Investor Home Loan (PI 3-Year Fixed) UBank UHomeLoan Best P2P Personal Loan RateSetter 2 Year Personal Loan Best Personal Loan Pepper Money Unsecured Variable Personal Loan Best Personal Finance App Acorns Best Online Customer Service UBank Best Banking Innovation Spriggy Most Innovative Team Mario Hasanakos & Alex Badran, founders of Spriggy
Supplying services to business the new growth area
Australia’s fintech sector is firing on all cylinders. More than 400 fintech companies are jostling for shoulder room in the market right now, and 72 per cent of these companies are supplying services to businesses. The upsurge in fintech companies can be attributed to the speed of business today, which places a greater premium on business readiness. Fintech companies are typically new financial services entrants providing genuine alternatives in areas such as wealth generation, lending, payments, insurance, cyber security and regulatory management. By global comparison, Australians are big fintech adopters. A recent report reveals that we have among the strongest fintech market penetration in the world, ahead of other advanced […]
SocietyOne takes leadership role on comprehensive credit reporting
SocietyOne, Australia’s pioneering and leading consumer finance marketplace lender, announced that it will provide positive consumer credit information to credit bureaus as part of the move to establish a fully-fledged comprehensive credit reporting (CCR) regime in Australia. SocietyOne will start sending secure data on its customers’ positive credit history in “public” mode from November 2017. With the Federal Government planning to toughen up the country’s existing CCR legislation in 2018, SocietyOne has thrown down the challenge to the major banks to quickly get on board with CCR and help all Australians get a better deal from their credit providers. Among the big four banks, National Australia Bank recently announced that […]
Melbourne ‘buy now, pay later’ fintech Openpay just raised $10 million and cancelled IPO
Openpay has completed a $10 million capital raising round, and revealed it has cancelled plans for an initial public offering. The $10 million, which was originally marked as a pre-IPO round, came from “a group of investors” that included existing backer Meydan Group, as well as Investec and SL Investments Group. The company did not comment on the reasons for cancelling the IPO plans. Business Insider understands that chief executive Simon Scalzo departed the company in August after less than a year at the helm, with chairperson Avi Schechter currently acting as the public face of the fintech. The latest investment also sees Investec head of emerging companies David Phillips […]
Australia a target for international fintechs
Australia’s wealth management industry is an attractive prospect for foreign technology firms and will likely see international players enter the market in coming years, a Microsoft report has found. The Moving Past Prosperity report, which the tech giant conducted in conjunction with Harvard Business Review, said that while payments and lending dominate the Australian fintech landscape, wealth management technology is growing rapidly, according to KPMG data. “Australia hosts the world’s sixth largest pool of funds under management, substantially filled by its compulsory superannuation scheme,” the report said. “With its potential for scale and cost savings through robo-advice, wealth management is expected to attract many international entrants.” Added to this is […]
