Citi Unveils Global Digital Wallet: Citi Pay
Citibank announced the launch of Citi Pay, a new digital wallet that will provide Citi customers with a simple and fast option for online, in-app and in-store payment needs. Barry Rodrigues, Head of Global Digital Payments at Citi, said the company is uniquely positioned to accelerate payment innovation on a global scale. Citi Pay will be made available to Citi customers for online and in-app purchases. As a digital extension of their current card relationship, Citi customers will be able to make online and in-app purchases using the same Citibank online user ID and password that they currently use to manage their existing online relationship with Citi. The company is […]
Payment giants Ezidebit and eWAY join forces to launch the eWAY Accelerator
Ezidebit and eWAY are delivering another innovative product launching the eWAY Accelerator, a FinTech solution which challenges the banks in the market.
Bitcoin technology could ensure grain growers get paid
A NEW company is seeking a technological answer to one of the biggest problems facing grain farmers — delays in being paid. Full Profile, established last year by Emma Weston, Bob McKay and Ben Reid, is looking at technology used in bitcoin trading to make prompt payments to farmers when they deliver grain. Ms Weston said Full Profile started building a program around the technology, known as blockchain, in April and will test it in Dubbo with a grain delivery to Fletcher International in the next four or five weeks. Ms Weston said the aim was for grain growers to know if the trader had the funds to pay them […]
PayPal allows sending money by voice via Siri on iPhone
PayPal has announced you can send contacts money simply by asking Siri on your iPhone. You can now use commands such as “Hey, Siri, send John $20 using PayPal”. PayPal says the feature is available from now in 30 countries including Australia with the latest version of the PayPal app. “With so many P2P transactions happening during such a busy season, we’re excited to give our users an early holiday present,” PayPal says in a blogpost today. PayPal is not the first company to offer sending money by voice. Amazon lets you buy certain items from its store using its Amazon Echo home robot. However the robot is not officially […]
Apple Pay coming to millions in Australia with Cuscal signing credit union deal
Up to 4 million Australians can soon start using Apple Pay following a deal between Apple and a body representing smaller banks and credit unions. Customers with debit and credit accounts held with 31 financial bodies will be able to use Apple Pay to make retail payments from their iPhone following a deal with payments provider Cuscal. A Cuscal spokesman said a starting date for the service was yet to be announced. The agreement does not include many of Cuscal’s industry partners and a number of credit unions but it does include 31 credit unions and banks. The list includes Credit Union Australia, Bank of Sydney, Horizon Credit Union, Police […]
Stone & Chalk says the new paradigm is outside-in innovation
It should come as no surprise that Alex Scandurra, chief executive officer Stone & Chalk, is a passionate advocate of collaboration: the raison d’être, justification, objective and mission statement of Stone & Chalk is to help foster and accelerate the development of world-leading fintech start-ups, by leveraging greater collaboration between stakeholders in the fintech eco-system. Stone & Chalk itself is a collaborative effort between fintech entrepreneurs, venture capital (VC) firms, companies, academia and government, to incubate and nurture financial services-focused tech start-ups in ways not seen in Australia before. “Collaboration is at the core of what we do, and it’s one of the main reasons why we’ve been able to […]
Afterpay and zipMoney: New instalment of old idea gains momentum
Fellow veterans of the “brown paper and string” era may recall lay-by, the instalment schemes offered by retailers before those plastic works of the devil called bank cards came along. At the risk of going all Bernard Salt on readers, the smashed avocado generation would be aghast to learn that customers of yore were required to put down a deposit on the item, but did not receive the goods until they paid the agreed instalments. What’s old is new again, and now lay-by is being reverse-engineered in the guise of point-of-sale retail intermediaries that finance “no-interest” payment instalment schemes. The key difference is they are “buy now, pay later” schemes […]
Banks, Apple fight to entrench their dominance in customers’ lives
In one corner is the largest company in the world, Apple. In the other sit three of Australia’s all-powerful banks, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank, and the country’s fifth biggest lender Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. These corporations have more than $1 trillion in market value between them, and they’re fighting over access to the ubiquitous device that has made Apple such a superpower: the iPhone. As well as being used by millions every day for phone calls, social media and internet access, the smart phone is tipped to play a critical role in how we spend money. This prospect has unleashed a full-scale business brawl, as Apple and the […]
