Alibaba Cloud and TAS announce partnership to lead the way in cloud services for Financial Industry in Australia
TAS, a leading technology partner for the financial services sector and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, have announced a partnership that marks a new era of cloud services to the financial services industry (FSI) in Australia. In this partnership, TAS and Alibaba Cloud will provide a managed, compliant and secure cloud system to further solidify TAS’s longstanding reputation of being a trusted technology partner for the financial services industry and help to further cement Alibaba’s entry into the Australian market. With TAS’s 30 years of deep industry experience and an excellent track record of delivering exceptional end-to-end outcomes for 60 financial institutions – together with Alibaba […]
NAB looks to challenge fintech space
The big four bank has launched an unsecured, short-term small business loan and overdraft facility through the broker channel, in a bid to go “head to head” with the growing fintech market. Launched this week, NAB QuickBiz for Broker enables brokers to digitally apply for unsecured business finance for their small business clients. Brokers will be able to offer small business clients (which have been operating for 12 months or more and make at least $100,000 per year), unsecured loans of between $5,000 and $100,000 on 12-, 24- and 36-month terms. The product comes with a 12.95 per cent fixed rate for the term of the loan, on a principal […]
NAB to fund energy fintech Brighte, backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes
National Australia Bank has applied its special lending framework designed to support fintech start-ups to offer a scalable, debt financing package to Brighte, the home energy lender backed by Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes. NAB has provided a $20 million debt facility to Brighte, which will make its first drawdown on the funds in the coming weeks, and the bank has an appetite to increase that amount. Demand for solar panels and batteries is expected to surge as more households look to reduce home energy bills. The deal is the latest for NAB in the fintech space, after it provided a debt facility to instalment payments provider Afterpay, which was initially […]
Wisr, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank announce $25m wholesale loan funding agreement
Australian neo-lender Wisr Limited (ASX: WZR) today announced a $25 million wholesale funding agreement with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited. The agreement will see Bendigo and Adelaide Bank provide a facility to fund existing and future loans and increase Wisr’s consumer loan book capacity, as well as improving the opportunity for revenue generation and operational performance. Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is Australia’s fifth-largest retail bank and a top ASX-60 listed company. It has a range of operations in consumer and business financial solutions, third-party banking and wealth services, and agribusiness. Wisr provides an innovative and secure platform to facilitate loans between funder investors and consumer borrowers. Anthony Nantes, Chief Executive […]
Bell Potter pitches fintech Raiz Invest for $120m listing
The initial public offerings are starting to flow thick and fast out of Bell Potter Securities. Next up is a $15.1 million raising for fintech Raiz Invest Ltd which, if successful, would see the company list with a $119.2 million market capitalisation next month. Raiz Invest is the new name for Acorns Grow Australia, a micro-investing app out of the United States that has been operating locally since February 2016. It is best known for its “round up” offering, which enables customer to invest their virtual spare change automatically. It says its app also acts as a personal finance assistant for users and allows customers to make lump sum deposits into managed funds and other financial products. Raiz […]
ANZ sees dramatic uptake in digital wallet payments
Almost $600m in six-month period. ANZ Bank customers made almost $600 million in mobile payments during the first half of fiscal year 2018. The bank said today that customers completed more than 18.5 million mobile payment transactions in the half, an increase of 156 percent on the previous corresponding period. ANZ said the transactions were made from mobile wallet services from Apple, Samsung, Google, Fitbit and Garmin, as well as the bank’s own mobile pay service. CEO Shayne Elliott credited the bank’s investment in mobile services as well as the 2016 establishment of its digital bank division – overseen by former Google executive Maile Carnegie. Elliott said ANZ’s mobile app […]
Acorns Australia rebrands to Raiz Invest
Acorns Australia has rebranded to Raiz Invest, a move that follows the company’s announcement in February to divest from Acorns. From today, all users will be prompted to update their Acorns Australia app, after which they will see the new Raiz Invest brand, logo and colour scheme. The website will also reflect the new name and branding. Raiz Invest Managing Director, George Lucas, said: “Today marks another significant milestone in our company’s history with the name change from Acorns Grow Australia to Raiz Invest. “After our recent agreement with Acorns, we felt a new name was an important step forward. The change reflects our new autonomy and our ability to […]
Fintech adoption speeds up in Australia
Australia is growing faster than most of the global markets and is now outplacing the US in terms of fintech adoption, says Noah Breslow, the chief executive of US online SME lending company OnDeck Capital, which has delivered more than $US8 billion in loans to 80,000 small businesses globally. He told the third AltFi Australasia Summit in Sydney on Monday that Australia is now the second-largest alternative finance market in the Asia-Pacific region. “We are looking at an industry that did $10 million of annual volume – these are numbers from KPMG in 2013, and in 2016 that had grown to $220 million.” Breslow said according to OnDeck estimates, “based […]
