Lender invests $100k in fintech start-up
A leading specialist lender has partnered with a fintech incubator to back a start-up in a program aimed at “re-inventing the financial services sector in Australia”. After hosting a two-day hackathon in December, which saw 20 entrepreneurs from different sectors come up with solutions to “revolutionise” the industry, Pepper Money and Pollenizer have chosen fintech start-up SmallStash to receive 12 weeks of training and financial support to further progress its ideas. The group’s focus is financial education for children, assisting parents to better educate them regarding money and savings. Pepper Money has invested almost $100,000 in the 12-week incubator program, with the funds contributing to supporting the start-up, including the […]
Fintech start-up PromisePay becomes Assembly Payments, signs key Gumtree deal
Well-backed Melbourne-based fintech start-up PromisePay has taken the bold move to change its name at the same time as announcing one of its most important deals to date, with eBay-owned online marketplace Gumtree. The company, which last year closed a $14 million Series A funding round with Australian tech VC fund rampersand, Westpac’s Reinventure, 99Designs co-founder Mark Harbottle and former Hitwise CEO Andrew Walsh, will now be known as Assembly Payments. PromisePay had already picked up a strong roster of more than 100 Australian and international clients including Airtasker, hipages, Flippa and Carsales.com.au for its online marketplace payments platform. It enables payments to be held in escrow, so a customer […]
Ignition Wealth announces goals-based investing
Ignition Wealth CEO Mark Fordree today announced a groundbreaking development as Ignition Wealth becomes the first Australian ‘robo-adviser’ to offer goals-based investing. Ignition Wealth has appointed SiResearch to provide adaptive asset allocation built around goals which have a specific objective and timeframe. Traditional risk assessment has focussed on the investor’s long-term goals, often focussing simply on retirement. The goals-based model acknowledges that investors’ goals may fall into several buckets including short term, medium term and legacy. “In reality an investor’s attitude to risk is influenced by what their goal is and the date by when they want to achieve it. The SiResearch goals-based investment model adds a specific objective […]
Apple Pay boss says CBA, NAB, Westpac risk missing the future of payments
The global head of Apple Pay has put three of Australia’s big banks on notice that the technology giant’s global payments system will steal their customers and they risk being left behind in the development of digital wallets. Jennifer Bailey said in an exclusive interview that Apple is so confident of the supremacy of its payments system that “customers will say they are happy to switch banks to use it”. With ANZ Banking Group the only big four bank to allow its customers to use Apple Pay, The Australian Financial Review can reveal that Macquarie Bank and ING Direct will turn on the service by the end of February. They […]
Mint Payments successfully completes $6m placement
Payments technology solutions provider Mint Payments (ASX: MNW) has successfully completed a placement of new shares to drive its aggressive expansion into South East Asia’s evolving payments landscape. The placement will be made pursuant to s708 (11) of the Corporations Act 2001, to raise $6.0M. Priced at $0.079 per share, the Placement represents a 3.7% discount to the last traded price of $0.082 per share. The capital raising will be undertaken in two tranches: a) Tranche 1 – comprising 50.6M shares, raising $4.0M pursuant to the Company’s existing 15% capital issue limit under ASX Listing Rule 7.1 ; and b) Tranche 2 – comprising 25.3M shares, raising $2.0M. […]
DomaCom clears regulatory hurdle for Mortgage Crowdfunding
A recent squeeze on investment loans for new customers by banks have led listed crowdfunder DomaCom to offer investors the opportunity to invest in residential mortgages after clearing a regulatory hurdle. The news broke this week that the fractional property investment firm was given ASIC approval to extend its crowdfunding model to securities, which means it can now offer fractional investment in corporate bonds as well as peer-to-peer mortgage bond sub-funds. According to the Australian Financial Review, the DomaCom platform allows investment in fractions of real property through collective investment schemes and crowdfunding. Its offerings target self-managed super funds and are on the approved product list of 41 financial adviser […]
Apple claims banks want digital wallets as a new revenue source
Apple says three of the big four banks are pushing to pass the costs of Apple Pay on to their customers as a way to “condition the market” into paying extra fees when using a mobile phone to make a ‘tap and go’ payment. One of the issues in the long-running battle between Apple and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, Westpac Banking Corp and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is whether the banks can pass through to their customers the fee that Apple will require them to pay to use the iPhone infrastructure. But Apple has described the argument as a “trojan horse”. In a submission published by the […]
Record of Advice production time slashed from half an hour to just seconds
MA Operator, the Australian fintech for independent financial advisers, has a new tool that produces Records of Advice (ROAs) in a matter of seconds. MA Operator’s closest published competitor is only able to produce ROAs in 30 minutes. This was announced in 2016 and at the time was a significant reduction from the still widely-used overnight process. Richard McLean, CEO at Frontier Financial Group, said: “MA Operator’s ROA automated generation takes away days of effort and removes significant costs from our business. More importantly the clients are provided electronic signing of their ROAs, reducing the market lag and increasing the accuracy of the advice, as well as providing a full […]
