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 […]
ANZ’s Shayne Elliott favours partnering to cut innovation risks
ANZ’s chief executive has flagged further partnerships with fintech and regulatory technology companies, saying large organisations faced a “trap” of driving up operational risks by doing too much themselves. Fresh from a trip to Europe to see how banks were tackling the rapid rise of digital, Shayne Elliott said he was not concerned that fintechs were trying to “eat our lunch” and tipped that banks and start-ups would increasingly leverage each other’s skills and market advantages. After signing up ANZ last year to Apple’s digital wallet Apple Pay, Mr Elliott added that technology companies such as Uber and Amazon were setting the bar for consumer expectations and banks needed to […]
Fintech Business Awards winners revealed
The winners of Momentum Media’s Fintech Business Awards 2017 have been announced, acknowledging the achievements of the industry’s leading lights. The premier awards night for the fintech industry, the Fintech Business Awards is dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of the disruptive businesses and innovators reshaping the way Australians access financial services. This year, Daniel Foggo of RateSetter Australia was recognised with the Fintech Business Excellence Award for individuals, beating out the other individual winners awarded at the event, with financial planning software firm Midwinter taking out the Fintech Business Excellence Award for companies. Over 300 nominations were received for the 18 awards, with the winners selected by a panel of […]
Aussie fintech funding triples: KPMG
While global fintech investment almost halved last year, the budding Australian sector finally bloomed, according to KPMG International’s latest report. Heedless of the 47.2 per cent evaporation in total global investment in fintech companies (which dropped from US$46.7 billion in 2015, to just US$24.7 billion last year), Australian fintech funding in 2016 was in full flood, more than tripling over 12 months, after a string of deals and funding rounds. According to KPMG, Australia’s total fintech investment last year topped US$626 million across 25 deals, a major increase on 2015 – which saw $185M across 23 deals – and a figure contrary to the receding global trend. Ian Pollari, global […]
Australia weathers fintech slump
Global investment in fintech companies almost halved last year as “froth” comes out of the burgeoning industry and investors wait to see if they can successfully disrupt incumbents such as banks and insurers, according to a new report. Fintech investment funding declined to $US24.7 billion ($32.17bn) last year from a bumper $US46.7bn in 2015, driven by fewer merger and acquisitions, and private equity investments, KPMG found. However, the less mature Australian fintech industry bucked the trend as investment soared to a record high of $626 million last year, up from $185m in 2015 and $461m in 2014. The increase was powered by Champ Private Equity’s acquisition of Pepperstone, Stirling Products’ […]
FinTech: UK Vs Australia
by Matthew Parker, The MitchelLake Group Having recently moved from the UK to Australia, I have been excited to observe and experience first-hand some of the differences between the UK FinTech ecosystem and that of its Antipodean cousin. I do not, by any means, pretend to be an expert, but I have had the privilege of working with and alongside some of the most exciting FinTech businesses and individuals across multiple markets. Any observation I am able to draw comes from a place of passion and sincere enthusiasm as well as a helpful dose of experience. So without further ado, let’s compare and contrast. The UK hit its stride at […]
Reckon Loans breaks $1Million milestone
Australian cloud accounting software provider Reckon (ASX:RKN) has announced its new Reckon Loans (powered by Prospa) platform has funded over $1million to small businesses, proving the online lending market is growing at an extraordinary pace. In partnership with Prospa, Australia’s leading online lender to small businesses, Reckon Loans provides SME’s a fast and simple service with approvals and funding of loans from $5,000 to $250,000 available within one business day. Reckon Group COO Dan Rabie said Reckon Loans is a disrupter in the fintech space, adding diversity and removing the red tape from the small-business loans market. “This is a significant milestone for our business and clearly shows there’s a […]
StartupAUS’s Crossroads report reveals 14-point plan to transform economy
Two-and-a-half years ago, StartupAUS declared that Australia was at a crossroads. We released our first report, bearing the Crossroads name, and called for a future that embraced technology start-ups and innovation. Today we released the third report in that series. You can find it online at www.startupaus.org/crossroads/. The question in 2016 isn’t which path to go down, but how far and how fast we are prepared to travel. In the last 18 months, we’ve seen encouraging progress across all areas of the nation’s start-up ecosystem. Right from inception, start-ups are better equipped to find a home. Hubs for specific start-ups such as SproutX (agtech) and Stone and Chalk (fintech) have […]
