An Australian fintech is letting ‘bankless’ Filipinos pay without handling cash
Australian fintech Peppermint Innovation has signed a partnership deal in the Philippines to provide mobile payment services to locals that don’t have bank accounts but do have a phone. The ASX-listed company announced its new partnership with SUNMar Express Global Services, which will see the Filipino company white-label Peppermint’s technologies, on Thursday. Peppermint chief executive Chris Kain told Business Insider many Australians wouldn’t realise there are “hundreds of millions” of people in neighbouring countries that don’t possess a bank account. “Because the country is spread over thousands of islands, the Philippines has one of the lowest rates of account ownership in the region. More than two thirds of Filipinos are […]
Payout platform Hyperwallet expands into Sydney to target growth in APAC
Vancouver-founded, San Francisco-based payments startup Hyperwallet has expanded into Australia, looking to target growth across the Asia Pacific region from its new Sydney base. It will also have a number of staff on the ground in Melbourne. The company operates a global payout system, effectively allowing companies to easily pay out employees, contractors, or service providers in their local currency. With the gig economy a strong market for Hyperwallet, Australia and the wider APAC region are ripe for growth. The Australian office will be headed up by managing director and senior vice president of APAC, Simon Banks, a former PayPal executive. Appointed in March, Banks said the region is punching […]
Square’s payment ecosystem is now fully evolved
Everyone knows Square for their card readers and payment systems, but did you know Square has a fully evolved payment ecosystem to help your business in more ways than you thought? Square Country Manager Ben Pfisterer outlines seven features you may have missed. Virtual Terminal Virtual Terminal allows a business to enter a customer’s credit or debit card information without the need for a card reader or app. Simply log in on your computer and start taking payments either over the phone or in person. You can give employees access to take payments from their computers, too. You get your funds as fast as the next business day. […]
This fintech let Australians use Bitcoin to pay $5 million worth of everyday bills
A Brisbane startup has allowed Australians to pay off $5 million worth of common household bills with Bitcoin. The unusually named Living Room of Satoshi has created a service that allows any bill that you can pay through the common BPay platform to be paid with Bitcoin. These include payment for utilities like telecommunications, electricity, gas, school fees, water and credit cards. The startup’s chief executive Daniel Alexiuc said that he started the venture in 2014 because of a lack of practical use for the cryptocurrency. “As the first truly international, decentralised and peer to peer currency, Bitcoin is perfectly suited to bill payments in Australia,” he said. “It also […]
Square’s first year of payments: over 60,000 Australian sellers served
Square recently celebrated their one-year milestone since launching Square Reader in Australia, and are excited to announce that since then over 60,000 Australian small businesses have chosen to use one or more Square products and services—including Square Point of Sale, Square Reader, Square Invoices, Employee Management, Virtual Terminal, E-Commerce and their Payment APIs. It has been a busy year of growth for Square and their community of Australian sellers: Square grew rapidly to over 60,000 Australian sellers served by Square across their entire range of products and services. Square are seeing 13% weekly average growth in transactions processed with Square across all products—supported by the unique proposition of Square […]
Blockchain to create winners and losers
Ordering a pizza is a fairly mundane transaction for many Australians. But when Laszlo Hanyecz convinced a Florida man to deliver two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins in 2010, he made history for the first real-world bitcoin transaction. Today, cryptocurrencies can be used to purchase everything from clothing, technology and homewares to travel, artwork and fine dining. What is most interesting about bitcoin though, is the blockchain technology on which it is based — a revolutionary platform which is spawning applications across a broad array of industry sectors and functions. Just a few examples include smart contracts, neighbourhood microgrids for buying and selling energy, the protection of intellectual property, anti-money laundering […]
Peppermint’s Mobile Bill Payments platform commences under its agreement with Metro Gas
Peppermint Innovation Ltd is pleased to announce pilot testing of its agent mobile bill payments technology has commenced under its agreement with Metro Gas Sales Inc. (Metro Gas). Metro Gas delivers Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) to over 60,000 Filipino households, via an established network of 50 delivery personnel, who on average make 15-20 deliveries a day, 7 days a week. The pilot will test Peppermint’s purpose built mobile agent payments platform, with Metro Gas delivery personnel using the Peppermint powered Metro Gas Agent App to offer customers the ability to pay household bills at the time a delivery of LPG is made. The offering will provide customers’ with front door […]
zipMoney and Shopify announce strategic partnership
zipMoney Limited is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Shopify, one of the world’s leading and most recognised ecommerce platforms with over 377,500 businesses globally. Zip has a strong focus on Australian Small Business, where there are 2.5 million businesses seeking to sell goods and services both online and instore. With a simple setup and subscription-based model, Shopify has strongly supported the transition of this community to the digital world. The partnership will further accelerate the growth of Zip’s digital wallet solution, zipPay, online and instore. Zip already process payments for hundreds of Shopify merchants and this strategic partnership will help to accelerate the acceptance of Zip at the […]
