Finch raises $2.25m for Gen Y finance app after ‘proving it can rival’ Silicon Valley fintechs
Financial collaboration platform myprosperity closes strategic investment round, appoints Chris Ridd as CEO
myprosperity, Australia’s leading cloud-based financial management platform has recently closed a $2.5M strategic investment round and appointed former Xero Australia MD Chris Ridd as Chief Executive Officer. The strategic investment round was supported by existing investors, and saw the addition of MYOB co-founder and early Xero investor, Craig Winkler, to its investor base. Established in 2011 by founder and Executive Chairman Peter McCarthy, myprosperity aims to cause a shift in the way households think about and manage their finances. Utilising the latest cloud technologies and connecting with real-time data feeds, it provides comprehensive wealth reports to give the user a true picture of their overall financial health. Myprosperity partners […]
CBA accused of blocking fintech Acorns in password row
Commonwealth Bank of Australia has sent alarming emails to thousands of its customers who are engaging with fintech start-ups, warning that sharing internet banking passwords could invalidate the protection CBA provides from losses on accounts relating to fraud. But Acorns, which is competing with the banks’ retail wealth divisions, says CBA’s communication is designed to slow its rapid growth and thereby reduce competition. CBA is “cloaking with security messages a way of being anti-competitive to the whole fintech industry,” said George Lucas, chief executive of Acorns in Australia. “It is strategically targeted at fintechs they now see are growing, and we are a major driver of that.” Acorns, a US-based company that helps users invest spare change in exchange traded funds, has been growing its Australian users at around 2500 each week to around 130,000 since its local launch in February. Around 70 per cent […]
Data sharing struggles between banks and fintechs
Fintech companies want your Internet banking logins. Banks don’t want you to give it to them. Find out why the answer isn’t as simple as security. The issue of data crops up time and time again in the fintech market. Whether it’s the banks not sharing their data, fintech companies not providing enough protection of the data they’re asking for, or discussion of the myriad data that waits to be taken advantage of by fintech opportunists. With data being such a hot commodity, it should come as no surprise that the only thing that is not happening with data is sharing. In a recent article in the Australian Financial Review, […]
Banks and fintechs at war over password sharing
Micro investment company Acorns has accused ANZ Banking Group and other banks of telling customers they can’t share account passwords with the start-up, retarding its growth. Fintech Australia, the new lobby group for financial services start-ups, has formed an “open data subcommittee” to push for changes to the ePayments Code to make it clear that bank customers can give passwords to fintechs without banks having to provide approval. Sharing passwords with fintechs is a legal grey area. Acorns, which invests small change in exchange traded funds, lets users see their bank account activity and round up transactions to the nearest dollar. The app then invests the “change” in an investment […]
