finder.com.au launches inaugural Innovation Awards
finder.com.au launches national awards to celebrate excellence in innovation Entry deadline is Friday 7 October 2016 Winners to be announced at event in Sydney on Thursday 10 November 2016 Australia’s most visited comparison website, finder.com.au, is inviting Australian businesses to celebrate their groundbreaking achievements of 2016 by entering the inaugural Finder Innovation Awards. Featuring seven categories, the Awards are designed to celebrate excellence, creativity and revolution in the technology, retail, insurance and financial markets, with winners to be revealed at a Sydney ceremony in November. Fred Schebesta, co-founder and director of finder.com.au, says the Awards are about providing industry recognition and raising awareness of the achievements of technological and financial innovators in Australia. “It […]
HotCopper lists on ASX
Australia’s most popular stock market and investment forum, HotCopper, today announced its successful listing on the ASX. Chairman Steve James said the business was already performing strongly with significant potential upside due to its large subscriber base of self-directed investors. “We have around 550,000 unique visitors per month, and 250,000 members who are predominantly retail, sophisticated and SMSF investors,” he said. “Our membership base represents a big percentage of the 605,000 Australians who invest through an online broker[1], and numbers are growing every month. We plan to maximise this growth opportunity and make HotCopper an indispensable part of investing in Australia.” Mr James said plans for new revenue streams included […]
Challenging the big banks
Atlassian’s co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes jokes that he loves the famous quote from Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos: “Your margin is my opportunity.” Bezos has created one of the world’s biggest and most successful retail giants using that approach. Atlassian’s spectacular global growth as a start-up software company from Australia shows that Cannon-Brookes has been able to adopt a similarly disruptive style. But one of Cannon-Brookes’ key targets in terms of taking advantage of margin and opportunity remains Australia’s big banks. It also made him an early supporter of Tyro Payments and now of chief executive Jost Stollman’s determination to challenge the power of the banks with Tyro’s new banking licence. To Cannon-Brookes, […]
Former MFAA CEO joins HashChing
A finance and logistics executive and former MFAA chief executive officer has joined the advisory board of mortgage marketplace and home loan deal gateway HashChing. Siobhan Hayden, who resigned as chief executive of the MFAA in June this year, has joined the advisory board of online home loans trader HashChing. It’s the third top executive the emerging fintech has secured in recent weeks. Financial services regulatory lawyer Claire Wivell Plater and financial service senior executive Helen Lorigan also joined the fintech’s advisory board recently. Ms Hayden commented that HashChing has the potential to significantly change the home loan market in Australia. “HashChing sits at the intersection of customers, brokers and lenders — […]
New FinTech Uno Home Loans lands a $16.5 million investment from Westpac
New Australian FinTech company ‘Uno’ has landed a $16.5 million investment from Westpac after its success in the digital mortgage service in the past few months. The major bank investment is set to expand the company even further as customers are discovering the benefits of having a greater power in the home loan search process. Chief Strategy Officer at Westpac, Gary Thursby, said “uno’s success has been impressive and we’re seeing its potential to become a serious player in the home loan market”. Westpac has been involved with uno since the concept phase and Mr Thursby is pleased to announce the investment where Westpac will be a strategic investor at […]
Aussie software firm partners with fintech start-up
Wealth software firm Class has announced its partnership with Sydney-based investment technology start-up Simply Wall St. “The integration allows Class’ clients to leverage Simply Wall St’s institutional-quality market research to better manage and review their portfolios on a global basis,” Class said in a statement last week. “It provides users with a comprehensive suite of client-focused infographics that clearly explain the key metrics of their own portfolios at an aggregate portfolio and/or a specific holding level,” the statement said. “The Simply Wall St platform runs in-depth analysis on over 15,000 individual stocks in Australia, the US and UK, plus investment portfolios, quickly identifying underlying strengths and weaknesses,” Class said Click […]
zipMoney has grabbed fintech Pocketbook in a $7.5 million deal
Digital retail finance and payment industry player zipMoney has bought personal finance management app maker Pocketbook. The deal includes $6 million upfront and another $1.5 million, depending on a set of milestones. The acquisition strengthens zipMoney’s position in Australia’s fintech sector. A short time ago, zipMoney shares were up 5.7% to $0.74. All Pocketbook staff will be retained including the founders, Alvin Singh and Bosco Tan. zipMoney will gain valuable data analytics on consumer behavior from Pocketbook’s large and growing user base, further enhancing its proprietary credit and fraud decision technology. Click link below to read more Source: zipMoney has grabbed fintech Pocketbook in a $7.5 million deal | […]
Hashching cracking fintech’s glass ceiling
Like the global technology industry more broadly, Australia’s fintech scene is a very male-dominated world. While MoneyBrilliant co-founder Jemma Enright and Timelio founder Charlotte Petris are obvious exceptions, Australia’s fintech entrepreneurs are mostly men. So are the vast majority of their venture capitalist backers and teams of software engineers. It’s a similar pattern around the globe. But Siobhan Hayden says it doesn’t need to be this way. The former chief executive of the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia has a message for girls seeking to start fintechs to disrupt the financial services industry. “Back yourself – people need to back themselves,” said Hayden, who last week joined the advisory […]
