Locked out of property market? Five better places for Millennials to put money
By Clayton Howes – CEO of MoneyMe Life sucks for an aspiring property owner right now. You probably already know that the average price of a house in Australia ($656,800) is several (eight) times that of the average full-time yearly income ($78,832). You’ve probably already heard that in the past five years alone, wages have grown significantly slower (13 per cent) than house prices (41 per cent), especially if that house is in Sydney (70 per cent). It’s enough to make you want to drown your sorrows in the most expensive smashed avo and latte combo available! But honestly – enough, already. If you’re as bored as I am of […]
Sydney fintech Stake is starting its $0 brokerage US share trading service
Sydney startup Stake will launch its $0 brokerage US share trading service within the next few days, giving ordinary Australians a low-cost opportunity to invest in brands like Amazon, Facebook and Tesla. The fintech first revealed in June its plans for the new service but the details hadn’t been settled at the time. Now founders Dan Silver and Matt Leibowitz have revealed to Business Insider that the only user fee would be 70 basis points on the foreign exchange rate when loading up and withdrawing from the US dollar trading account. Stake had also previously flagged intentions to introduce paid services on top of the basic product, but Leibowitz now […]
Bipartisan push for the Reserve Bank to back Australian bitcoin
Labor and Coalition senators have crossed the political divide to call on the Reserve Bank to embrace bitcoins as an official form of currency or risk the future competitiveness of Australia’s $145 billion a year financial services industry. The push from Labor senator Sam Dastyari and Liberal senator Jane Hume comes after the digital currency soared to an all time high of $4070 per bitcoin on Monday, up from less than 10¢ per coin in 2010. Senator Dastyari said when he first raised bitcoin in the Senate, one of his colleagues came to him and said: ‘I don’t get what the issue is, don’t they just melt all the coin […]
Blockchain Explained: What you need to know
As emerging technologies continue to revolutionise the way we live and transact, concepts like ‘cryptocurrency’ and ‘blockchain’ are becoming increasingly relevant to our collective financial future. Major banks are already talking about and beginning to use blockchain, a technology that could drive the digital transactions of the future. And it’s become a major buzzword in financial circles around the world for its potential to change the exchange of value as we currently know it. While the technology itself is in the very early stages of existence and is complicated to understand, businesses and entrepreneurs around the globe are looking at ways to effectively use it in the belief that blockchain […]
IRESS launches XPLAN iAssist
IRESS has launched XPLAN iAssist to further strengthen support available to XPLAN users. XPLAN iAssist will allow users to grant an IRESS support team member temporary and secure access to their individual XPLAN session within a few seconds. Users needing the service will be able to securely-generate a unique token within XPLAN, which won’t require the exchange of any username and password details. IRESS product executive, Emily Chen, said iAssist allows IRESS to rapidly respond in real-time in a transparent, secure and efficient way, without the limitations and frustrations of screen-sharing software installations. “iAssist balances our desire to further improve user experience, help clients and users continue to increase business […]
Australia joins the tech train with AI and Blockchain
Australia is currently seeing the first manifestations and ramifications of two of the business world’s key technologies: blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI). Both could fundamentally change how financial and professional operations are conducted in Australia. Currently, blockchain technologies are being explored through research and start-ups looking to implement the purely digital ledger. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Australian government’s federal agency for scientific investigation, released a report last month exploring how blockchain could support the country, along with the risks it presents. In addition, in June, Melbourne hosted the Annual blockchain summit, while the newly formed Blockchain Association of Australia finished its first meeting on July […]
Sydney fintech HashChing just digitised conveyancing
Online mortgage marketplace HashChing has announced a new partnership for digital conveyancing. The Sydney fintech is now offering the services of electronic conveyancing marketplace Titlexchange, with the pilot limited to Victoria for now before a general rollout later. HashChing chief information officer Atul Narang said that the legal paperwork can be a bottleneck in the traditional home purchase process. “Borrowers are at the mercy of conveyancers, who can sometimes drag the process out unnecessarily and worse – charge more for their own delay,” he said. The integration into the HashChing platform allows users to access fixed-price conveyancing through Titlexchange without having to go offline to provide ID and personal data. […]
