Australians are turning to robo-advisers to boost their returns
Investors hunting for decent returns on their hard-earned cash are looking at other options outside of parking their money in the bank. Interest rates on term deposits and online savings accounts remain around 1 to 2 per cent while the value of Australian sharemarket has climbed by 9 per cent over the past 12 months. Shares have also paid dividends averaging a healthy 4 per cent. Accountant Guy Bane, 29, said he was always looking to diversify his investments and he had steered clear of keeping cash in the bank. Instead he used robo-adviser Stockspot to do the hard work for him. “I’m trying to build a bit more wealth […]
Perth Mint’s GoldPass app for tech-savvy Gen Y traders
Perth Mint boss Richard Hayes hopes the State-owned entity can attract tech-savvy millennials with its new gold trading smartphone app. GoldPass is a secure investment platform that allows people to buy, store and sell gold and transfer the precious metal to others via digital certificates with real time settlement. The digital certificates are backed by physical gold stored at the Perth Mint and its network of central bank-grade vaults. There are no storage fees but the mint makes money via brokerage fees ranging from 0.2 and one per cent depending on the size of the transaction. Mr Hayes said the mint already had a solid customer base, generally made up […]
Luxembourg and Australia agree fintech pact
The Luxembourg Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (‘CSSF’) and The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (‘ASIC’) today signed a Cooperation Agreement which provides a framework for cooperation to understand financial innovation in each jurisdiction. The Agreement provides a framework for information sharing between the two regulators on financial technology (fintech) and regulatory technology (regtech). It complements the existing close relationship between ASIC and the CSSF. On entering the Agreement, ASIC Commissioner John Price said, ‘We see this agreement as very timely. Both our jurisdictions are leaders in funds management and other financial services. ASIC is very interested in learning from the fintech and regtech innovations that are taking place […]
New SMSF admin offering hits market from fintech firm
A fintech firm has developed a new platform which provides SMSF establishment and ongoing administration services. The financial technology platform, called Selfmade, was developed by former Macquarie investment banker Robin Huender and MoneyMe Financial Group chief executive Clayton Howes. Selfmade is an online platform allowing users to establish and monitor the performance of their SMSF while admin and tax returns are taken care of in the background. “Selfmade has built its platform with integrations to Class and Macquarie. The platform targets SMSF trustees and members that might otherwise be handled by less tech-enabled accountants and administrators,” said the fintech firm. To read more, please click on the link below… […]
Fears simmer about repeat of Storm Financial fallout
One fintech firm fears that the political reaction to the Hayne royal commission will result in more ineffective reforms, similar to the ones arising from the collapse of Storm Financial crisis. Raiz chief executive George Lucas said that when the royal commission hands down its final report by 1 February 2019, the odds are that it will call for more regulation. The government of the day will duly oblige, said Mr Lucas, rightly fearing “the political fallout if it fails to implement the report’s recommendations in the wake of the malevolent behaviour being unveiled”. “The legislation will pass the parliament, giving the regulators more power to keep the top end […]
Xero backs itself with $413m convertible notes
Cloud-based accounting company Xero has backed itself to continue growing strongly, raising $US300 million ($413 million) in five-year convertible notes with an exercise price 70 per cent above its share price on Thursday. Capital raising via the issue of convertible notes is relatively commonplace among US technology companies – NASDAQ-listed Atlassian raised $US850 million this way in April – however Xero chief executive Steve Vamos said it was “groundbreaking” for an Australasian company. “If we think we’ve got strong growth potential in the future, we don’t want to issue stock at current prices and dilute our shareholders,” Xero chief financial officer Sankar Narayan said. “We were well placed to raise in […]
Australian Fintech heavyweight to launch institutional-grade security token exchange in Malta
Rick Klink the founder of Paritech and OpenMarkets, Australia’s largest independent trading platform by trading volume of over AUD50 billion per annum, heads up Malta Digital Exchange (MDX) and brings his ground-breaking technology to the digital asset space. The cryptocurrency and blockchain sector saw exponential growth in 2017, now a push towards regulation will provide trust and a safe environment for institutional investors, allowing them to participate in the global economy. Security tokens are the next generation of regulated securities, which are being built on blockchain-based infrastructure rather than being restricted to legacy systems. MDX aims to become the world’s premier security token exchange, which will enable greater market efficiency, […]
CSIRO and the University of Sydney’s Red Belly Blockchain breaks new ground for speed
The University of Sydney and CSIRO’s Data61 say they have successfully created a blockchain that can process a mass amount of transactions significantly more quickly than public blockchains, such as the one behind bitcoin. New trials of the Red Belly Blockchain run on Amazon Web Services infrastructure have shown an average transaction delay of only three seconds and a throughput of 30,000 transactions per second. In comparison, bitcoin processes only three to seven transactions per second and as of August had an average confirmation time for a transaction of 10-30 minutes (during peak trading periods in January this has reached as high as almost 3000 minutes per transaction), according to […]
