Westpac puts another $50 million into VC fund Reinventure
Westpac Banking Corp has triple-downed on its corporate venture capital fund Reinventure Group, investing a further $50 million into a third fund to bring its total commitment to early stage fintechs to $150 million. A week after Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer described the 20 start-up investments made by Reinventure’s first two $50 million funds as a new “strategic asset” for the bank, Westpac is providing Reinventure co-founders Danny Gilligan and Simon Cant with an additional $50 million to be invested under a more flexible structure. The third fund will consist of a unit trust stapled to an early stage venture capital limited partnerships (ESVCLPs), a new structure that will allow […]
Westpac says fintech partnerships paying off
Westpac’s $100 million investment in the Reinventure venture capital fund is paying off for the bank, according to group CEO Brian Hartzer. Reinventure has made 20 investments in areas including distributed ledger technology, payments, data analytics, digital currencies, social networking and P2P lending. Those investments are increasingly a strategic asset for Westpac, Hartzer told a briefing on the bank’s first half results. “These investments have helped build Westpac’s reputation as a good partner for fintech companies and this is now paying off in our core business,” the CEO said. He cited as an example the launch in April of Presto Smart, which integrates point-of-sale systems with merchant payment terminals. “Presto […]
Sydney blockchain integrator strikes virtual deal for virtual currency project
Australia’s IoT Group (ASX:IOT) has struck a “cornerstone” agreement with Royalti Blockchain Group to kit out its proposed Hunter Valley power plant cryptocurrency mining project with Bitfury servers, but the deal has a very long way to go before becoming a reality. The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed IoT Group said on 7 May that its subsidiary IoT Blockchain had signed a conditional binding terms sheet with Royalti Blockchain Group, an authorised Australian integrator for blockchain technology company Bitfury. The idea behind the deal is that Royalti Blockchain Group will house Bitfury’s cryptocurrency mining servers in Australia at IoT Group’s proposed Blockchain Applications Complex in the Hunter Valley, NSW. The publicly-listed […]
Aussie fintech startup wins Barclays’ global Open Innovation Challenge 2018
Aussie trade financing deep technology startup, Trade Ledger, has finished ahead of nine other VC-backed companies from across the world to be named the winner of the Barclays UK Ventures Open Innovation Challenge 2018 in London this week. The ten finalists were hand-picked by Barclays due to their potential to offer game-changing business solutions across a variety of industries, however Trade Ledger came out on top because of the way it completely transforms processes in business lending, through its world-first technology platform. “Within Barclays UK Ventures, we’re looking for companies we can partner with to develop and deliver transformational products and services,” said Ben Davey, CEO of Barclays UK Ventures. “We chose Trade Ledger […]
SelfWealth growing in the face of finance industry’s woes
The banking royal commission is currently underway and it’s fair to say that the stories emerging are nothing short of shocking. There’s endless tales of woeful and deceitful financial advice — so bad in fact that that it has even led to families losing their homes. It’s also come to light that for years financial planning groups have been unlawfully deducting service fees from customer accounts, even falsifying documents. The disturbing findings coming out of the banking royal commission should encourage many Australian investors to take more control over their investments and financial wellbeing. Amidst this turmoil has emerged an innovative solution for people wanting to take control of their […]
RBA not suitable to regulate new payments technologies
The government is being urged to follow in the UK’s footsteps and create a new regulatory body for the payments industry that can regulate new forms of payments being made via blockchain and cryptocurrencies. A white paper commissioned by lobby group the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance and conducted by researchers from RMIT University found that existing bodies such as the Reserve Bank were not suited to regulating the rapidly changing digital payments sector, because it wasn’t flexible enough. Co-author of the report RMIT senior research fellow Christopher Berg told The Australian Financial Review having payments policy and monetary policy in one institution would not be workable with the introduction of cryptocurrencies. […]
P2P lender’s growth due to consumer ‘rebellion’
Peer-to-peer lender RateSetter has attributed its recent rapid growth to consumers actively rebelling against the big banks. The company has just passed the milestones of 10,000 investors and $250million in loans and says it is thanks to the Royal Commission’s scrutiny of the four major lenders. Research amongst RateSetter’s investor base has found that long-term customers of the big four, particularly amongst generation X, are diverting millions of dollars away from their savings accounts and term deposits into longer term P2P investing. The amount invested by these investors has increased by 14% over the last 12 months, with average investment now sitting at close to $40,000. CEO of RateSetter Australia, […]
New record as fintech funding hit $5.4bn globally in Q1
Mega-rounds are back in fintech as 12 firms raised investments of more than US$100m each. Fintech funding continues to rise and rise as an investment class with US$5.4bn across 323 deals was raised globally in Q1 of 2018. According to CB Insights’ Global Fintech Report Q1 2018, global fintech activity hit a new record during the quarter. The US saw the largest boost in deals while Europe saw fintech deal activity dip to a five-quarter low. South America is already a region to watch as funding raised in the first quarter of 2018 of US$271m surpassed the entire funding total for 2017. Funding saw a boost from a US$150m mega-round […]
