FinTech Interviews: Uno Home Loans
In the second of Matthew Parker’s series interviewing FinTech CEOs, he sat down with Vincent Turner, the CEO of Uno Home Loans. Matthew Parker: There have been a few new Mortgage brokering businesses launch over the past 2 years, why is this happening now? What has created the right circumstance for this to occur? Vincent Turner: Good question… One of the drivers is that it’s one of the last transactions left to do digitally. People are now more comfortable applying for financial products online such as credit cards and loans, not just researching and comparing. As people become more comfortable transacting online with their holidays or flights or clothes, they […]
Trump fuels demand for more ethical investing
The unexpected rise of Donald Trump has helped fuel the formation of the “ethical generation,” which is comprised of socially conscious consumers committed to ensuring their investments are sustainable and align with their own world view. In the US calls to boycott Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand saw it dumped from major department stores and after ridesharing service Uber switched on surge pricing to capitalise on the crowds at an anti-Trump protest in New York, a #deleteuber movement kicked off. Last week anti-Adani coal mine protesters prompted the temporary closure of 11 Commonwealth Bank of Australia branches in Newcastle and the boss of the corporate watchdog, Greg Medcraft is on record […]
AliPay is coming, ready or not
There is a financial technology tsunami headed this way from China and our government, business and regulation leaders need to get ready to adapt. So says Grame Barty an experienced international trade envoy and China hand who previously led the Austrade international operations group where he helped set up a landing pad in Shanghai, as well as leading an innovation-centric delegation to China. He also has experience as a tech entrepreneur in his own right. Mr Barty has watched the phenomenal growth of Chinese electronic sales platform Alibaba and its subsidiary payments vehicle Alipay. Both Alibaba and Alipay are gearing up in Australia and other Western countries as well as […]
Beyond bitcoin: what emerging blockchain technology means for your organisation
Crypto currency Bitcoin is gaining increasing attention as an alternative to existing financial options. It offers a highly secure way for parties to exchange funds without the need for an intermediary such as a bank. Yet Bitcoin is only one application of the technology that underpins it. Dubbed blockchain, this technology has the potential to revolutionise everything from billing systems and contracts to supply chains and even electronic medical records. In reality, Bitcoin is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to blockchain deployments. According to analyst reports, usage is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 61.5 per cent until 2021. This means […]
440,000 transactions per second with Red Belly Blockchain
The University of Sydney has recently announced that it has developed a new Blockchain-based system that can perform more than 440,000 transactions per second. Researchers from the School of Information Technologies at the University of Sydney, who developed the new Blockchain, named this system after one of Australia’s most deadly snakes – Red Belly Blockchain, and claim that it has a game-changing potential for the financial transfers industry. Moreover, according to them, the Red Belly Blockchain allows for the exchange to occur in a peer-to-peer fashion, as well as in a commercial environment restricted to certain users, which makes it the first blockchain being built to work both in public […]
What Monopoly? Blockchain startup Setl sets sights beyond Australia
Setl founder Peter Randall isn’t waiting for permission to build the first competing platform in an Australian post-trade system long dominated by a monopoly. While the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) enjoys exclusive rights to clear and settle transactions for the nation’s financial institutions, Randall’s startup has already built a service he believes can process the load more quickly and at lower cost than ASX’s proprietary CHESS platform. Ironically, ASX’s exploration of distributed ledger tech with partner Digital Asset Holdings has boosted the blockchain industry in Australia, yet its monopoly means less competition in bringing solutions to market. Nevertheless, Randall isn’t waiting for the nation’s regulators to begin loosening older, monopolistic […]
FinTech Interviews: GROW Super
by Matthew Parker, The Mitchellake Group Over the coming weeks, I will have the pleasure of sitting down with many of Australia’s leading FinTech CEOs. Each will be discussing the specific vertical of Financial Services they are looking at and share their insights. For the first interview in this series, I sat down with the CEO of GROW Super, Josh Wilson, to discuss the stream of innovation that is occurring in the Superannuation vertical. Matthew Parker (MP): There have been a few new “disruptive” superannuation businesses launch over the past 2 years. Why is this happening now? What has created the right circumstance for this to occur? Josh Wilson […]
Finding the right partners key to success
In a recent white paper on the future of payments involving The Australian Financial Review and Braintree, one of the key findings was more than a quarter of businesses work with three or more payment partners. This can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it ensures an organisation can reach a wider range of consumers but on the other, it injects more complexity into the mix such as more security issues. For business, getting the payments element of online commerce right is critical as is getting the right payments partner. Growing companies need a payments partner that can scale quickly and deal with a range […]
