Xero State of Lending Report: Funding gap is stifling small business growth in Australia
Research unveiled today by Xero suggests Australia’s small businesses could borrow as much as $80 billion over the next 12 months, if they could get the funding. Instead, small businesses are struggling to access the capital they require, in large part due to the complexity of the loan process. This is creating a funding gap and holding back significant jobs and growth opportunities for the Australian economy. According to the Xero State of Lending Report, one in five small business owners (22%) say access to capital is the greatest pain point or perceived threat to their long-term growth aspirations, and a quarter of small business are not very confident in […]
GetCapital appointed to PLAN Australia aggregator panel
GetCapital, Australia’s award-winning specialist lender to small and medium sized businesses (SMEs), has announced its appointment to the lending panel of leading aggregator PLAN Australia from 20 August. PLAN is one of Australia’s largest mortgage aggregation groups, with over 1,650 members and a total loan book value close to $70 billion. The aggregator’s commercial and asset finance volumes reached $990 million in the six months to March 2018. The partnership will see GetCapital’s innovative multi-product offering of business loans, equipment finance and trade finance become available on PLAN’s extensive broker network across Australia. “We welcome the opportunity to work with PLAN as part of our commitment to support the growth […]
Future Hub: ‘one-stop shop for blockchain expertise’
Australian technology company Lakeba Group’s blockchain division has set up Future Hub, “a one-stop shop for blockchain expertise,” according to Lakeba chief growth officer and Future Hub head Darren Younger. The idea behind Lakeba’s Future Hub is to combine the company’s technology skills with expertise from financial, legal and other relevant specialisms. A number of projects are already underway in various industries, said Younger, but not many are at the stage where the parties can be identified. Examples include financial services (using blockchain to avoid pay-slip fraud), health (attesting to the authenticity of laboratory results), agriculture (protecting data from IoT devices), supply chain (validating goods or services), energy (to provide […]
Australian National Blockchain will bring opportunities for disruptive startups, says Data61 senior research scientist
CSIRO’s Data61 data innovation group is collaborating with law firm Herbert Smith Freehills and technology giant IBM to build the Australian National Blockchain (ABN), a large-scale cross-industry platform for smart contracts. The ABN is intended to serve as a national infrastructure, allowing companies to join the network to share digitised contracts. Work is currently underway on a pilot, with the platform expected to be able to host live transactions by mid to late 2019. The decentralised nature of blockchain technology means, once the platform is available, there will be one version of a contract accessible to each involved party. Permission-based access is intended to allow data to be exchanged securely, […]
Grant Thornton support of Lakeba’s Future Hub consortium to help accelerate Blockchain Growth
Australian technology innovator Lakeba Group, and leading global independent assurance, tax and advisory firm Grant Thornton, have announced a new alignment that will see Grant Thornton’s technology industry team, support Lakeba’s Future Hub. Recognised for being one of the first technology companies in Australia to have live commercial blockchain implementations across a range of sectors, the vision of Lakeba’s Future Hub is to provide a one stop shop solution for Australian businesses looking to adopt blockchain solutions from conception, to development all the way through to tax, legal and regulatory compliance. “With the support of Grant Thornton’s technology industry team, the Future Hub will be greatly strengthened with the proven […]
Coca-Cola Amatil invests in Doshii’s future
Doshii is extremely pleased to announce that it has received the first investment made by Coca-Cola Amatil’s corporate venture programme, Amatil X which is a multimillion-dollar program set up to identify and invest in innovative growth opportunities outside of Amatil’s core beverages business. Chris Sullivan, Coca-Cola Amatil Group Director of Partners & Growth, said Amatil X’s minority share investment will support Doshii to grow and expedite their planned expansion into the Asia-Pacific region and South Africa. “Amatil X was launched in April to explore opportunities for growth outside of our core business and beyond innovation in beverages. This includes investing in companies like Doshii, which is using an innovative, scalable […]
WA Fintech business doubles following major acquisition
WA Fintech Fair Go Finance doubled in size from 1 July following the acquisition of Capfin Money, to create one of the largest non-bank personal loan lenders in the Australian small loan market. Fundco Pty Ltd which trades as CapFin Money (previously Spot Loans) was purchased by Fair Go Finance, providing an exciting opportunity to scale the Australian operations and access a wealth of data. The combined operations of Fair Go and Capfin now establishes the business as one of the largest non-bank personal loan lenders in the Australian small loan market. With this scale there are significant advantages as Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes a reality in the risk management […]
Australian fintech Tic:Toc closes successful Series B funding
Australian fintech Tic:Toc, the world’s only fully digital home loan platform, today announced it has closed its Series B round, raising $11.5M in funding. The Series B funding, led by Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia Limited (Genworth Australia) and Blackstone group entity La Trobe Financial, includes both new and existing investors and adds significant depth to the Tic:Toc share register, which also includes Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. The funding will allow Tic:Toc to further advance the capability of its platform as well as build greater brand awareness. It will also partially fund Tic:Toc ’s pending expansion into offering its automated assessment platform as a service to partners, as well as exploration […]
