Stone & Chalk to open in Melbourne, backed by AustralianSuper, NAB, ANZ
Fintech hub Stone & Chalk will open in Melbourne next month with the support of new corporate backers including AustralianSuper and National Australia Bank, in a move that will establish a centre of gravity for fintech in Victoria. Alan Tsen, who will become Stone & Chalk’s general manager in Melbourne, having stepped down as chief executive of Fintech Victoria, says the new location at 459 Collins Street, alongside agtech acclerator SproutX, will be its first base in the city. The space will open in mid-August and expand to accommodate about 15 start-ups (the space has room for 60 desks) before expansion into a bigger hub. The second centre for Stone […]
Winners at The Finnies!
Congratulations to those Australian Fintech companies and their fearless leaders who won awards last night at the inaugural Finnies Fintech Awards: Female Fintech Leader of the Year: Emma Weston, AgriDigital Co-Founder & CEO Joint Male Fintech Leaders of the Year: Greg Moshal & Beau Bertoli, Prospa Co-Founders Fintech Organisation of the Year: Afterpay Emerging Fintech Leader of the Year: Emma Weston, AgriDigital Co-Founder & CEO Emerging Fintech Organisation of the Year: Spaceship Best Fintech place to work: Prospa Best workplace diversity: Timelio Marketing Campaign or Brand Initiative of the Year: Equitise – Equitise Bubble Excellence in establishing Market Presence (Australia): BrickX […]
Top 25 Australian Fintech Influencers
The Australian fintech industry is booming, and according to Finder.com.au these are the people (in no particular order) that are helping to shape it: Alex Scandurra – CEO of Stone & Chalk Alistair Lamond – Commercial director of Skippr Andrea Myles – CEO of the China Australia Millennial Project Asher Tan – Co-founder and CEO of CoinJar Ben Heap – Founding partner at H2 Ventures Caitlyn Iles – Founder of XChange Cameron Dart – Founder and CEO of Australian FinTech Charlotte Petris – Founder and CEO of Timelio, vice-president of Fintech Australia Danielle Szetho – CEO of Fintech Australia Danny Gilligan – Co-founder of Reinventure and co-founder of Data Republic […]
Fintech Down Under
Cameron Dart is the CEO of International Fintech, a hub that connects Australian fintech companies to the rest of the world and vice versa. The company recently opened a London “launch pad” office that helps Australian startups expand globally and links startups in other countries to the Australian market. To help shed light on the state of Australian fintech, Benzinga caught up with Cameron Dart for a Q&A about innovation and how fintech solves problems for Australian users. Q&A With Cameron Dart What’s the general “lay of the land” of Australian fintech? The Australian fintech industry as a whole is in its infancy compared to the United States and the […]
Facebook meets FinTech
Banking has come a long way since the stamped passbook. Social media has come a long way since the simple status update. Can the two intersect? Social media is transforming banking relationships almost as quickly as it has changed our interpersonal communications. With the rise of interfaces such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as fintech start-ups such as Tyro and Coinjar, financial outlets can use social media for everything from improving customer service to allowing users to send money to others via online platforms. Emerging fintech companies like Movenbank are using social media data to help people get access to credit or even simply open a bank account. […]
Bitcoin worth more than gold as price reaches all-time high
The crypto currency known for its anonymity and decentralised nature reached an all-time high on Friday afternoon, making it more valuable than gold in Australia. Bitcoin was trading above $1634 on bitcoin.com.au, as gold hovered around $1620 an ounce. The currency has been surprisingly steady this year, remaining above the arbitrary $US1000 mark ($1297) for its longest ever stretch, according to researcher CoinDesk. Industry heads point to the nearing deadline of a decision by Securities Exchange Commission in the US to introduce the first of three bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF). “There is a lot of excitement that the Winklevoss twins’ ETF is coming close to approval,” says Asher Tan, CEO […]
Fintech start-ups must ‘unblock the chains that bind them’
Australia’s fintech start-ups will need to weather the blockchain “hype cycle” if they’re to survive, a panel at Melbourne’s Collab/Collide fintech summit determined. Emma Weston, chief executive of disruptive agriculture start-up Full Profile, which uses blockchain technology to eliminate risk and inefficiencies in the agricultural supply chain, said commercial use of the technology was still at a nascent level. “We’re finding lots of potential for blockchain, but what’s going to get us into the world, it’s got to be companies that are prepared to put resources behind something that is fairly uncertain, in a market that is fairly uncertain, in a world where a lot of the incumbents don’t want […]
Need to Know: Practical Bitcoin basics
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard the phrase Bitcoin uttered around tech circles, or maybe even on mainstream news outlets. Maybe you’ve seen Bitcoin as a payment option on stores like Steam and Microsoft’s. But what is Bitcoin, why should you care and is it worth bothering with? As to what Bitcoin is, simply put, it’s way of transferring money around. Some people think it’s a challenge to government reserve banks (probably not) or a whole new system of finance technology akin to the credit card (quite likely), but for us plebs, right now, it’s main utility is cheaply and quickly sending money from A to […]
