Up launches conversational payments
Up, the digital banking platform that went live in October 2018, has today launched conversational payments in app for customers. An Australia first, the experience will bring functionality on par with the United States, Europe and China, where Venmo, SquareCash and WeChat Pay have significantly altered and improved customers’ payment experience. Up’s Chief Imaginer, Anson Parker, says many Australians will not have experienced this approach to payments before. “Driven by Osko, payments are made in real time to friends and merchants – there’s nothing ‘pending’ here. And we’ve built this platform from the ground up to enable the conversational format that gives customers clarity on where money is going to […]
American Express praises Ripple for cross-border payments, calls blockchain technology ‘very promising’
American Express is at it again with positive comments on blockchain technology and praising Ripple.
Assembly Payments rolls out Westpac partnership while announcing international expansion
Leading Australian fintech Assembly Payments has today announced the next stage in its partnership with Westpac and its international expansion. Assembly’s Westpac partnership has seen its unique in-store solution approved by POS companies serving more than 50% of Australian retailers. The solution, which supports Westpac’s Presto payment device, was highlighted by Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer in his result statement in November. The success of Assembly’s first partnership with a major financial institution has drawn global attention from similar finance behemoths, which the Assembly team is moving rapidly to capitalise on. “Australia was only the beginning,” co-founder and CEO Simon Lee said. “We have been working with a range of international […]
Australian payments fintech start-up Verrency secures major deal with the fastest growing bank in the United Arab Emirates
Global payments innovation service and Australia-based fintech Verrency is enabling payments innovation for the fastest growing bank in the United Arab Emirates, Liv., Emirates NBD’s lifestyle digital bank for millennials. The agreement will enable Liv. to leverage Verrency’s cloud-based payments service and fintech partners to enable cost-effective delivery of a multitude of value-added services to customers. Launched last year, Liv. is a mobile-only bank offering a lifestyle-based banking experience targeted at millennials. It is also the fastest growing bank in the country, with over 150,000 customers as of date. Verrency’s Commercial Director for Asia and Middle East, Aaron Oliver, said: “Verrency will enable Liv. to deliver on its innovation-led proposition […]
Bankwest accelerates shift to digital cards
Australian retail banks are accelerating their push towards deploying virtualised payment cards to replace vulnerable legacy plastic, as the pace and scale of breaches intensifies sharply. Commonwealth Bank subsidiary Bankwest revealed on Monday it has gone live with a ‘digital card’ feature that can activate a credit card in a digital wallet via the Bankwest Mobile app within 24 hours rather than having to wait for embossed plastic to arrive via snail mail. It’s a small but significant move because it signals the transition by banks to a truly digital-first payments footing as major card schemes American Express, Mastercard and Visa all heavily push tokenisation efforts that remove the need […]
Fintech currency wars heat up as Pelikin prepares to launch
A travel cash mishap in Croatia was Sam Brown’s inspiration to launch startup Pelikin into the competitive space of travel money and foreign exchange. “I was in Croatia, I went to get money out, put my travel card into the ATM and then cancelled my transaction because I changed my mind. My travel provider thought that was suspicious and blocked my funds. What that led to was having to borrow money, from the people I was travelling with,” Brown says. Brown has just closed out a crowdfunding raise for Pelikin of close to a quarter of a million dollars that has been “essentially a marketing campaign” for a the company’s […]
Cash payments are ‘niche’ says RBA governor
The governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia has said that Australians have embraced electronic payments and will continue to favour this payment method. Philip Lowe made the statements at the second annual Australian Payment Summit where he said that cash was becoming an increasingly niche payment. “It looks like a turning point has been reached. It is now easier than it has been to conceive of a world in which banknotes are used for relatively few payments; that cash becomes a niche payment instrument,” he said. Mr Lowe said he expected Australians to keep shifting towards electronic payments as cash payments continue to decline. “At the same time as […]
Sydney commuters can use credit or debit cards to tap on and off trains
Sydney commuters can carry one less card as of today. You can now “tap on and off” at the Opal reader with your Visa, Mastercard or American Express credit or debit card. Or if you’d prefer, you can use the digital wallet on your smartphone or smartwatch to replace how you use your Opal card. This is an extension of trials that have allowed commuters to use their credit or debit cards to tap on the Manly F1 ferry since July 2017 before it was extended to all public ferry and some light rail services in Sydney in March 2018. With Australia’s widespread adoption of contactless payments to make purchases, […]
