Xero & CommBank unveil innovations to transform small business banking
Xero today announced the first of many new features to be released with Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s largest bank, designed to enable mutual small business customers to make smart, informed decisions. A world first is the ability to set up direct bank feeds from either platform. Mutual customers of Commonwealth Bank and Xero can choose to start their journey within Xero, or connect from the Xero accounting platform directly within NetBank. This feature also accelerates the processing time of setting up Commonwealth Bank bank feeds for a small business customer from ten days to having the feeds available overnight. It means Commonwealth Bank and Xero customers can reconcile more of their […]
Ignition Wealth superannuation tools drive superfund engagement
Ignition Wealth is Australia’s leading provider of superannuation tools and calculators. Since 2010 our tools and calculators have been used by superannuation funds to drive member engagement and provide excellence in client experience. “With 750,000 members served over the past six years we know that user friendly tools and calculators hold the key to powerful member engagement. Our technology allows superfund clients and prospective clients to do their financial homework while becoming comfortable with the superfund. This leads to a solid growth in the superfund’s business.” Mark Fordree, CEO, Ignition Wealth. The Ignition Wealth wealth management solutions are hosted on the superfund’s own website or mobile app. Recognising […]
Fintech is going to be much bigger than you think
If payments can be made anywhere, anytime, across any device, why do you need a currency? Or even a bank? The “fintech” revolution is upon us – but what we’ve seen may only be the start of it. Fintech – a term coined with the listing of peer-to-peer lending platform LendingClub on the New York Stock Exchange in late 2014 – is not only a portmanteau of ‘financial technology,” it describes a whole new industry composed of companies that use technology to make financial services more efficient. It’s big, it’s growing and it’s disruptive. “Fintech is set to change finance as profoundly as the issuance of the first permanent banknotes […]
2 Upcoming FinTech IPOs
For decades financial services in numerous flavours were the exclusive province of the banking sector. To get a loan, pay bills, apply for credit cards, or transfer money, consumers and corporations alike turned to banks. It is hard to imagine the rise of the Internet is little more than 20 years old and the rise of smartphones is even more recent – less than 10 years. As a direct result new industries are emerging, among them FinTech, or financial technology. FinTech companies offer alternatives to the banks and as such stand ready to massively disrupt the way financial services are delivered. Direct peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding are changing the way […]
Australian FinTech marketplace Valiant announces capital raise
Valiant, member of fintech hub Stone & Chalk announced today that the company has completed their seed round capital raising subscription. The $800,000 capital raise was led by fintech venture capital firm Reinventure, supported by H2 Ventures and a selection of prominent angel investors including Mitchel Harad and Vincent Turner. Co-Founders Alex Molloy and Richard Cotton launched the Valiant business loan marketplace in November 2015, with the aim to minimise the angst associated with sourcing, comparing, and securing business loans. Valiant partners with over 26 lenders from across the lending spectrum with more lenders being added monthly. Alex Molloy: “We built the Valiant marketplace to solve a very particular need. Until now, it has been difficult for time poor business owners to quickly […]
The DAO: Australians buy into the virtual company of the future
Australian investors and organisations are among hundreds of backers of a new virtual organisation that only exists online, is run entirely by computer code, but which promises to change the nature of corporations worldwide. The DAO, or Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, represents the largest non-political crowdfunding project to ever hit the internet, closing a $US132 million ($184 million) fundraising round over the weekend, to create a corporation with no management, no board and essentially no legal rights in any jurisdiction. The Australian Financial Review has tracked down a number of Australians who have invested including Duncan Campbell, a 26-year-old early cryptocurrency adopter, Bitcoin company Bit Trade and smaller research organisations hoping […]
DigitalX announces deal with global telco Telefónica
ASX ANNOUNCEMENT: DigitalX Limited (ASX:DCC and “the Company”) is pleased to announce that Telefónica Internacional S.A.U. (“Telefónica”) is the Company’s first strategic partner in Latin America following the successful integration of the DigitalX AirPocket App into Telefónica’s network. The mobile phone giant signed a marketing, distribution and sales agreement with DigitalX, which was announced to the market via the ASX on 17 February 2016, that will give Telefónica’s Latin American customers access to DigitalX’s unique value transfer and remittance application, AirPocket. Telefónica, which has nearly 232 million telecommunication access points in Latin America, is one of the largest telcos in the region and is among the top five biggest telecommunications […]
Blockchain technology to hit bank profits
Revolutionary blockchain technology threatens to slash the profits of banks and wipe out lenders which fail to quickly adopt the online record-keeping innovation, a high-powered panel of finance and technology experts warned. Jose Fernandez Da Ponte, global digital business executive at Spanish banking giant BBVA, said digital disruption to financial institutions by blockchain posed “extremely large” threats and opportunities. “Those institutions not up to that are likely to cease to exist,” he said at a conference in Washington. At a panel convened by the International Monetary Fund, financiers, technologists and regulators debated the ramifications of the evolving blockchain. IMF deputy managing director David Lipton said banks and regulators were grappling […]
