Blockchain is ready for prime time despite its critics
By John Heaton – Moneycatcha CTO Over the last few years the hype around Blockchain has been brought to the forefront via mass entry into cryptocurrencies. This is not too dissimilar to when online trading systems became publicly available in the late 1990s early 2000s. The pattern of behaviour is similar with an opportunity being presented and individuals trying to make a return on investment. As with the online trading systems, there will be individuals who manage to make significant returns on investment but the vast majority made marginal or no returns. Before technology is fully commercialised it endures certain growing pains such as awareness, decision to adopt, initial use […]
How to find out what those strange charges are on your credit card
Credit card bills, with lists of charges from businesses you’ve sure you’ve never heard of, are sometimes harder to translate than an alien message left on a moon circling a distant sun. Stuart Grover founded a company, Look Who’s Charging, in 2016 after puzzling over expenses at his previous business, 3D Printing Studios. He was wasting hours of time trying to reconcile and categorise the often cryptic transactions within the bank feed of his accounting software. “The more research we did the more we realised that this wasn’t just a big problem for small business owners and bookkeepers but that it is also a significant problem for consumers and financial […]
Fintech and Property: What You Need to Know
Using Fintech in the property industry Australians embrace technology in everyday life and they expect it to be part of everything they do. For the last three years, Fintech has been one of the fastest growing industries in Australia, with the number of registered companies growing from around 100 in 2015 to 600 in 2018. With the rapid growth of the industry in Australia, the door is open for the property industry to benefit. What Fintech products will the property industry gain the most benefit from? Data Analytics: Using information and data from Fintech platforms will help advisors and agents to make informed decisions for their clients. They will be […]
Blockchain: A catalyst for new business models
The concept of blockchain technology is all but synonymous with cryptocurrency. It’s through pioneers such as bitcoin that everyday consumers have come to recognise this revolutionary and instantaneous mechanism for executing and recording financial transactions. But in business, curiosity is turning into innovation and experimentation. The use of blockchain to complete financial transactions is one of the more rudimentary applications of this technology. Blockchain means we now have a way to handle information without relying on a single trusted ledger, such as banks in the context of cryptocurrencies. Across all industries, how we verify, audit, enter, record, and update data has been left to a patchwork of different technologies and […]
The 3rd Annual Australian FinTech Awards 2018 – 1 August, 2018 – Sydney
The 3rd Annual Australian FinTech Awards 2018 celebrate the achievements of the dynamic people and businesses comprising the fintech sector. These Awards seek to recognise success in the FinTech sector in its many forms. This event will be an evening of celebrating the best innovation, created by the best innovators and entrepreneurs that live and work in Australia.
Chinese blockchain delegation hunts Aussie opportunities
A high-powered delegation of Chinese technology executives is in Australia this week for discussions on blockchain, including how China plans to apply it to trading relationships. The companies are a who’s who of China’s fintech elite. Senior managers from Ant Financial, WeBank, JD.com, ZhongAn, Wanxiang and OnChain have made the trip south. They’re being led by Ming Li, director of the China Electronics Standardisation Institute, which has responsibility for setting blockchain industry standards under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Blockchain records and verifies transactions in synchronised databases providing transparency and security. The architecture will end up underpinning an “internet of value”, which proponents reckon will be as important […]
Bitcoin Trading: Where to Start?
Bitcoin divides opinion. Some think it’s the most revolutionary development in global finance ever, whilst others are all too eager to demonize it as “fraud” or Ponzi Scheme. Whatever your opinion of the world’s first truly decentralized money, one thing is certain: the price is incredibly volatile. It’s not uncommon for Bitcoin to see 20% moves in just 24 hours. In fact, the largest swing ever in the price of Bitcoin was in 2013. It dropped from $233 to $67 in a single night. For investors, a crash of 71% such as the one experienced that April will have been heart-wrenching to endure. However, not all would have lost money […]
Fintech – The evolution of modern financial technology in the 21st Century
Financial procedures have evolved drastically over the last 100 years. We have seen a huge change in how many aspects of finance are processed such as payments, investment, data storage and types of currency. A term that has sprung up in the last couple of decades and gained prominence is ‘Fintech’ – this articles details exactly what Fintech is, and why it is essential for the modern world. What is Fintech ? Fintech = financial technology This is the basic meaning. Fintech is much more than that however – it is any new type of innovative technology that competes with or precedes traditional financial methods; particularly the delivery of financial […]