Fintech a $US1 trillion fight
Consultants Oliver Wyman has been talking to banking clients all around the world over the past few months about the concept of “modular financial services”. It’s the coverline adorning one of the firm’s latest research pieces on the impact of information technology on the future of banking. Even as the equity prices of US fintech poster children like Lending Club and OnDeck are pummelled as capital markets reassess valuations, incumbent banks around the world show no sign of losing interest in fintech. Indeed, if the interim results of three of Australia’s big four banks last week were any guide, thinking about fintech in the C-suite is only accelerating. The earnings […]
Meet eight fintechs changing financial services
When you have just seven minutes to sell your idea as the next big thing to change banking and investment, every moment counts. Thirty of the country’s best fintechs are pitching to a room full of 160-plus bankers, brokers and venture capitalists at the Grand Hyatt ballroom in Melbourne, where their story, business plan and even looks are all being judged. From payments to wealth management, peer-to-peer lending and crowd funding, fintech start-ups are taking aim at the heart of the financial services industry and a pot of revenues that Goldman Sachs estimates at $4.7 trillion. The banks are all vying for a stake in these disrupters before they join […]
Identifying customers in the digital era
Digital identity poses an array of challenges for the consumer and the merchant. The push to perform Know Your Customer (KYC) checks online (or 100 point check as it’s known in Australia) has dramatically increased, with AML/CTF obligated merchants seeking to acquire customers remotely, and in most cases seeking to release the tether to bricks and mortar entirely. Austrac defines KYC under the AML/CTF legislation as “documentation which sets out a business’s approach to ensure that it can effectively identify, verify and monitor its customers and the financial transactions in which they engage, relative to the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing”1. Austrac also allows electronic verification, where […]
Blockchain technology – why all the hype?
As one of the most talked about emerging technologies, some say blockchain technology could revolutionize everything from stock exchange settlements and transport logistics to voting or welfare payments. So what is it and why is it relevant to financial advisers? Internationally, the benefits and wide range of possible uses for blockchain technology have been touted for a couple of years now. Within Australia, it’s gained some ground after a recent Australian Securities Exchange decision to examine its use for a new clearing and settlement system that’s faster and cheaper than the existing CHESS system. To enable this effort, the ASX bought a five per cent stake ($14.9 million) in Blythe […]
Blockchain technology to hit bank profits
Revolutionary blockchain technology threatens to slash the profits of banks and wipe out lenders which fail to quickly adopt the online record-keeping innovation, a high-powered panel of finance and technology experts warned. Jose Fernandez Da Ponte, global digital business executive at Spanish banking giant BBVA, said digital disruption to financial institutions by blockchain posed “extremely large” threats and opportunities. “Those institutions not up to that are likely to cease to exist,” he said at a conference in Washington. At a panel convened by the International Monetary Fund, financiers, technologists and regulators debated the ramifications of the evolving blockchain. IMF deputy managing director David Lipton said banks and regulators were grappling […]
Fintech Market Growth to Add A$1 Billion New Value to Australian Economy by 2020
The global Fintech sector exhibited robust growth in 2014 when investment activity tripled to US$12.21 billion from US$4.05 billion in 2013. This activity continued in 2015 with an increase in global funding into Venture Capital (VC) backed Fintech startups. Fintech growth in 2015 was international, and Frost & Sullivan anticipates this international dispersion, as well as the global growth trend to continue with more Fintech companies successfully reaching the exit stage of funding in 2016. In the Asia-Pacific region, Fintech investments were concentrated in Australia, China and Singapore, and in 2015, skyrocketed to reach US$3.46b – a four-fold increase from 2014 to 2015. Asian Fintechs garnered strong support, with funding […]
How to embrace change and survive digital disruption
Digital disruption is a trend that’s here to stay and no industry is safe. Traditional industries like manufacturing, transport, retail, tourism and hospitality, print media and entertainment may have been hit first, and hit hard, but it’s only a matter of time before others, including the advice industry, feel the heat. The banking and finance industry could lose almost a quarter of its revenue to fintech disrupters by 2021, based on a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report, ‘Blurred lines: How Fintech is shaping financial services’, says the disruption of the financial sector is already underway. It’s currently reshaping the nature of consumer banking and payments, and a second wave […]
