Sydney Angels funds QPay $570k to steal millennial students from banks
Australia’s first ever student marketplace app, QPay, has raised $570,000 from a series of high profile investors, including Sydney Angels and the Sydney Angels Sidecar Fund 2, to break into student banking through the release of a student-targeted QPay MasterCard. QPay aims to use the QPay MasterCard to capture the largest cluster of millennial consumers at the point when they’re most likely to begin making serious financial decisions – when enrolled in tertiary education. “University is the time when life decisions start to become quite future-focussed, especially regarding our finances,” said Andrew Clapham, Co-Founder of QPay. “We might be weighing up the amount of student debt we can responsibly accrue, […]
GROW Super begins group insurance innovation
GROW Super is partnering with one of the world’s largest reinsurers to explore the potential for blockchain technology within group insurance. Entering a joint venture with Hannover Life Re Australasia, GROW will use R3’s Corda blockchain infrastructure to deliver improved customer experiences. “Combining the scale, knowledge and brand of Hannover Re with GROW’s innovative technology and unique way of solving problems promises fantastic outcomes for customers,” GROW Super chief executive Josh Wilson said. “Using Corda allows us to be completely confident in the integrity of infrastructure of the distributed ledger. This will allow us to focus with Hannover Re on creating customer experiences that will eventually be seamless, immutable and […]
Stone & Chalk founded startup SkyBuys to launch duty free project with Heinemann Australia
SkyBuys is pleased to announce Heinemann Australia (HEINEMANN Tax & Duty Free) has signed an agreement to trial the SkyBuys App and technology platform for duty free shopping. Announced today at the Airbus BizLab DemoDay in Hamburg, the SkyBuys-Heinemann Australia project is scheduled to commence in early Q3 2018 at Sydney Airport, Australia’s major international airport. Founded at the Stone & Chalk fintech hub in Sydney, mobile commerce startup SkyBuys developed the SkyBuys App for international passengers to shop for duty free at any stage of their journey, including in-flight. The App allows passengers to search and purchase duty free inventory in-app from the time they receive their ticket through […]
Novatti Group (ASX:NOV) 1H18 results & outlook
Novatti Group Limited (ASX:NOV) CEO, Peter Cook talks about the company’s 1H18 results, the launch of its Australian remittance service, the integration of basis2 and progress towards its goal of becoming an ADI (authorised deposit-taking institution). Rachael Jones: Hello I’m Rachael Jones for the Finance News Network. Joining me from the Novatti Group (ASX:NOV) is CEO, Peter Cook. Peter, welcome to the Network. Peter Cook: Rachael good afternoon. Rachael Jones: Firstly could we just start with an introduction to your company? Peter Cook: Novatti listed two years ago, January 2016. Our market capitalisation is about $40 million at the moment and actually, our top 20 shareholders have about 80 per […]
Danielle Szetho is stepping down as CEO of FinTech Australia
Danielle Szetho, the inaugural CEO of industry group FinTech Australia, is leaving after almost two years of successful lobbying for change in Australia’s financial industry landscape. Sarah Worboys, a former chartered accountant now active with startups, will be interim CEO. More recently she was head of strategy and operations at Melbourne-based peer-to-peer invoice financier Timelio. Szetho, a former Fairfax Media product manager, was the driving force behind the not for profit industry body, establishing the annual the Finnie awards, arguing successfully for equity crowdfunding and getting the federal government to make fintech a priority. During her tenure, membership at FinTech Australia, whose aim is to make Australia one of the […]
Despite bitcoin crash, initial coin offerings attract Aussies to make money online
Warren Stokes knew nothing about bitcoin until his son began receiving yellow postal bags filled with $50 notes in the mail. The cash was from cryptocurrency trading when his son was still in high school — about seven years ago. “He explained to me he was on a group on reddit — 1,000 people were joining their computers together to mine, and again, honestly, I had no idea what he was talking about.” Mr Stokes, 58, is now a casual “crypto” investor himself. At a recent cryptocurrency meet-up in Sydney, he was there to learn about the latest craze: initial coin offerings (ICOs). An ICO uses blockchain technology to issue […]
Aussie Regtech secures recognition as leader in Compliance Innovation space
Leading Australian RegTech Lucsan, has been announced as a Fintech Business Awards finalist in the Compliance Innovator of the Year category. As one of the 10 nominees contending the award, Lucsan is thrilled to be named alongside some of the industry’s best in class by being acknowledged as a leading organisation making a contribution to the rapidly growing RegTech and fintech communities. The exciting development further signify Lucsan’s presence as an in-demand RegTech. It also follows on from the announcement late last year that one of Australia’s largest financial services technology providers, IRESS, took a minority stake in Lucsan. Additionally, Lucsan recently welcomed former ASIC man, Stuart Frith, as their Group […]
Stuart Stoyan is FinTech Australia’s new chair
Stuart Stoyan is appointed FinTech Australia’s new chair as Simon Cant steps down Stuart Stoyan, who is the founder and CEO of Melbourne-based fintech company MoneyPlace, has become FinTech Australia’s new chair after the association’s founding chair Simon Cant decided to step down. Mr Cant led the founding of FinTech Australia in November 2015. He authored the initial fintech call to action which made the case to government for fintech to become a national innovation priority in the face of global financial services disruption. At the Treasurer’s invitation, Mr Cant also led the development of FinTech Australia’s initial reform priorities agenda in January 2016 which informed the Australian Government’s Backing Australian […]
