Australia’s first next-gen digital bank is live
South-Melbourne based technology developer, Ferocia – presented the wide range of benefits this next-gen digital bank will offer customers.
CBA and Data61 join forces to create ‘smart money’
The Commonwealth Bank and CSIRO’s Data61 have joined forces to create “smart money” using blockchain technology, which has the potential to reduce fraud and revolutionise government programs such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme. In an initial proof-of-concept called Making Money Smart, the organisations have created programmable money by using smart contracts on a private blockchain, allowing conditions to be applied to the way the money is spent. CBA’s head of experimentation and blockchain, Sophie Gilder, told The Australian Financial Review the NDIS was a logical scheme to apply smart money to because of the number of rules, the scale and the lack of transparency and manual reconciliation that takes […]
Volt Bank signs PayPal deal to tackle customer inertia
Start-up Volt Bank hopes to tackle customer inertia in the banking sector by partnering with global payment giant PayPal to make the sign-up process easier. Under the deal, which is PayPal’s first partnership with an Australian company, Volt Bank will be able to tap into PayPal’s 7.2 million active user base in Australia to sign up customers using their PayPal account. This means PayPal customers will be able to use their existing personal data to skip a couple of steps when signing up to become a Volt Bank customer. The deal also means when Volt Bank issues debit and credit cards to customers they will be automatically linked to PayPal, meaning customers don’t […]
Ripple signs up three cross-border payment services
Three companies that provide cross-border payment services plan to use technology developed by startup Ripple that employs cryptocurrency XRP to speed transactions. Ripple, a large holder and promoter of XRP, said its platform for cross border payments, called xRapid, is now commercially available and that it had signed up firms Cuallix, MercuryFX and Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union as clients. XRapid uses XRP, a virtual currency powered by distributed database technology called blockchain, to make international payments faster, according to Ripple. Mercury FX and Cuallix are money transfer companies, while Catalyst is a wholesale cooperative financial institution that provides a range of services to 1,400 credit unions throughout the United […]
UK fintech GoCardless expands to Australia
UK fintech GoCardless, the online payments business simplifying Direct Debit, today announced that it has opened an office in Melbourne. GoCardless, which already serves more than 35,000 businesses every month across the UK, Eurozone and Nordics, is now able to offer businesses in Australia a better way to collect recurring payments. GoCardless will help the more than two million small businesses in Australia to improve their cash flow and cut the time they spend on administrative tasks, by making it easy to set automatic payment collection dates and automatically reconcile payments from within billing platforms like Xero. GoCardless’s intuitive API technology and integrations with subscription software including Chargebee and Zuora, […]
Moody’s expects consumer technology giants to be major disruptors in financial services
Moody’s Investors Service expects large technology firms like Google, Facebook and Apple to continue expanding their ability to distribute and offer financial products and services, emerging as significant competitors to traditional consumer-facing financial institutions. The greatest risk to incumbent financial firms is retail-facing technology giants taking control of customer relationships and distribution of financial products, according to a report Moody’s released on Tuesday. Technology-focused companies can enter finance with products core to their businesses, such as payments, that can create and store value — just as Square did with its Cash App. As account balances grow, technology firms can easily start offering low-cost index funds, investment advice, insurance and financial […]
Home owners willing to accept bitcoin for property despite volatility
Despite a sharp fall in bitcoin prices over the past eight months, some bullish investors are still willing to accept the cryptocurrency instead of Australian dollars for the sale of their multimillion-dollar homes. One bitcoin is currently trading at $US6448, down from its peak in December 2017 of $19,535.70.Now with one bitcoin worth $A8786, a prime piece of real estate in Sydney’s inner-city has hit the market with the option to buy in the cryptocurrency. It is a risky move given a property deal is yet to be struck in Australia using bitcoin, despite several properties being offered for sale last year with vendors willing to accept payment in that […]
Australians are embracing fintech as they move away from traditional payment solutions: Research
Australian appetite for fintech services is on the up, with non-bank contactless or card-less mobile payment solutions now being used more than bank-owned payment solutions, according to recent research from market research company Roy Morgan. The Roy Morgan Digital Payment Solutions Currency Report, which is based on more than 50,000 consumer interviews, suggests fintechs, including startups, are taking market share from incumbents, albeit slowly. While 6.4% of people interviewed said they had used bank-owned digital payment solutions within the past 12 months, 6.5% had used non-bank solutions such as Apple Pay or Google Wallet. Further, 6% said they had used pay-later startup Afterpay within the past year. Some 94% of Australians said […]
