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 […]
Exchange traded fund opportunities and risks
Australia is a long way from having “biblical” exchange traded funds (ETFs), as the US does, that exclude companies that support lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender rights. But a rush of new ETFs in this market is creating controversy. Local issuers expect a massive conversion of investors into ETFs in the next five years, tripling the market’s size and disrupting the wealth-management industry. If product promoters are right, ETFs will revolutionise how hundreds of thousands of people invest. iShares Australia director Jon Howie believes Australia’s ETF market could hit $100 billion in assets by 2023, from $29 billion in May 2017. “There’s no reason why ETFs cannot account for around […]
Ex-Turnbull adviser Paul Shetler joins Stone & Chalk to teach innovation
Paul Shetler and Alex Scandurra are on a mission: to get boards to stop merely thinking and talking about innovation and to start doing it. Shetler has emerged in his first private sector role after Malcolm Turnbull hired him to run the government’s Digital Transformation Office, which he left in November. He has been convinced by Scandurra, the chief executive of Stone & Chalk, to join the Sydney-based fintech hub for a couple of days a week to advise both tenants and companies wanting to deepen their engagement with new economy. AFR Weekend sat down with Shetler and Scandurra to understand directors’ psyche towards risk-taking and responding to the powerful […]
This fintech let Australians use Bitcoin to pay $5 million worth of everyday bills
A Brisbane startup has allowed Australians to pay off $5 million worth of common household bills with Bitcoin. The unusually named Living Room of Satoshi has created a service that allows any bill that you can pay through the common BPay platform to be paid with Bitcoin. These include payment for utilities like telecommunications, electricity, gas, school fees, water and credit cards. The startup’s chief executive Daniel Alexiuc said that he started the venture in 2014 because of a lack of practical use for the cryptocurrency. “As the first truly international, decentralised and peer to peer currency, Bitcoin is perfectly suited to bill payments in Australia,” he said. “It also […]
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 […]
Australian cashless future finding favour
Powering the payments process will be fintechs such as Australian start-up Assembly Payments, which provides a single payment platform that is compatible with various disbursement channels, with clients so far including Gumtree, Airtasker and carsales.com.au. Online innovations such as Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa are already enabling customers to shop via voice-activated transactions, while messenger apps and social media heavyweights such as Facebook are making forays into the banking and payments space. World of opportunity Fintech digital payments are forecast to be worth $1.8 billion by 2020 in Australia alone, and are proving to be a major disruptor of the banking sector. With increased convenience, flexibility and low-to-zero fees, could traditional […]
Why your financial adviser loves ETFs
The next time you chat to a financial adviser about portfolio construction strategies, depending on your investment focus of course, the conversation could very well turn to the use of exchange-traded funds. Advisers have become one of the core drivers behind Australia’s rapidly growing ETFs sector, which at the start of this month edged past $26.6 billion in total assets under management. So far this calendar year about $1.2bn in new investor funds have been channelled into ASX-listed ETFs. Research just released by research firm Investment Trends and ETFs issuer BetaShares shows seven out of 10 advisers are either currently recommending the use of ETFs to their clients or intend […]
Square teams up with leading POS and order management platforms
Square are today announcing integrations that will give business owners across Australia who are using alternative point-of-sale and order management platforms the ability to accept payments with Square. For the first time in Australia, these businesses can access Square’s affordable hardware, fast deposits and online payment solutions that millions of sellers across the world already use to run and grow their businesses. Select larger businesses, such as full-service restaurants or multi-location retailers, have built their operations around platforms to manage orders and run business processes that support their specialised or unique needs. Our list of new integrations with platforms include Vend, TouchBistro, Posboss, Abacus, SalesIn, Mobi2Go and Boppl. Sellers using any […]
