Former Macquarie boss Allan Moss an investor in fintech ChimpChange
Former Macquarie Group chief and Reserve Bank of Australia board member Allan Moss has emerged as a backer of IPO hopeful ChimpChange, sources told Street Talk. Australian “digital bank” start-up ChimpChange has chosen to disrupt US banks, given their high fees for transferring money, but the company is back at home and seeking to raise circa $15 million with a planned listing on the Australian Securities Exchange. Moss’s support may provide ChimpChange’s sponsor brokers with extra momentum as they test the appetite of potential investors. He most recently threw his weight behind online consulting start-up Expert360, which also counts former Commonwealth Bank and Westpac chief information officer Bob McKinnon among […]
Big banks face big risk of losing customers
Australia’s big banks face a huge risk of losing their most valuable customers to their fintech rivals, new research has shown. According to an analysis conducted by Centre for Social Economics and Roy Morgan Research, the big bank customers most likely to churn, instead turning to tech-savvy fintech providers, are their “most valuable customers”. The fintech phenomenon, according to Roy Morgan, taps into a new consumer mindset – called the Desire Economy – where 64% would prefer never to go into a traditional bank branch. Ever again. Consumers in the Desire Economy are younger, well educated, tech-adopting, urban dwellers. Forty percent are early adopters of technology compared to only 5% […]
Australian FinTech Opens up Vast Opportunities for ICT Companies
Sydney, Australia, 23 May 2016 – Australia’s development as a leader in Fintech innovation will require concerted effort from government agencies and established financial institutions and will involve partnerships and research collaboration between banks and startups. It will also present many diverse and lucrative growth and development opportunities for ICT companies that will help form the necessary ecosystem for a leading Fintech market. Data and connection security will be the most significant challenge for Fintech companies in Australia; largely because mobile payments make up the majority of the revenues of all the Fintech segments. Reliable security will be a key issue and an important selling point to ensure success as […]
NAB, Westpac and Qantas invest in Data Republic
National Australia Bank, Westpac Banking Corp and Qantas have taken stakes in Data Republic, a Sydney-based start-up that has designed a platform which allows companies and government to exchange data in a secure environment. The deal indicates some of Australia’s largest companies are considering sharing data with each other to enhance service delivery but under strict controls to protect customer privacy. NAB, Westpac and Qantas have invested a combined $10.5 million into Data Republic’s recent Series A equity fundraising round. The stakes were acquired through Qantas Loyalty, NAB’s venture capital fund, NAB Ventures, and Westpac’s venture capital fund, Reinventure Group. The deal is Qantas’ first investment in a tech start-up […]
Local tech innovators recognised
A Perth-based fintech startup has been named one of the top finalists in Silicon Valley Forum’s World Cup Tech Challenge, while the winners of a hackathon hosted by BHP Billiton and Unearthed have also been revealed. Local entrepreneur Graeme Speak’s BankVault technology has been selected in the top 24 startups worldwide for the World Cup Tech Challenge. BankVaultonline.com prevents bank accounts from being hacked, and involves placing a physical computing device in an office which communicates with a counterpart service running in a remote data centre. The system is immune to malware and other techniques used by hackers because it runs separately to the user’s own network. BankVault is one […]
Blockchain is here to stay
Blockchain, the technology that underpins Bitcoin, is the talk of the town at the moment. The financial services industry can’t get enough of it. The enthusiasm essentially boils down to the technology’s potential to reduce the financial transaction costs while ensuring robust security. While Bitcoin is unlikely to be make traditional currency extinct, blockchain has provided the impetus needed for new and innovative research into how the slow and often expensive centralised financial transaction systems that dominate banking, so what is this blockchain? Put simply, blockchain is a data structure that can be used to create digital ledgers of transactions shared among a distributed network of participating organisations. Financial institutions […]
DirectMoney unable to fully fund loan demand
Australia’s only listed P2P lender, DirectMoney, says it is unable to fully fund its loans and is asking borrowers if it can refer them to another lender. Chairman Stephen Porges said it is still looking for institutional funders beyond the one it has – Macquarie Bank – to fund the loan demand it has.Until it gets more institutional money he said it does not have enough cash to lend to all the borrowers applying for loans via its website. “The company remains intensely focused on progressing loan sales to institutions and development of a funding warehouse. At the same time we are rolling out a strong marketing program for [its […]
Rubik to Partner with MyState on Digital Banking Transformation
MEDIA RELEASE: Rubik Financial Limited (ASX: RFL), a leading technology company delivering innovative banking, wealth and lending solutions to the financial services industry, has been selected by MyState Limited (ASX: MYS), a diversified financial services group, to partner on the transformation of their digital channels and customer experience offering. Rubik’s technology solution, which will go live in August, will enable MyState to offer their customers a superior digital experience, including access to MyState’s products and services from the device of their choice (desktop, smartphone or tablet) via the operating system of their choice (iOS, Android, Windows), and at the time of their choice. Iain Dunstan, Chief Executive Officer of Rubik, […]
