US giant buys Canberra online transaction business eWAY for $US50m
Canberra multimillionaire Matt Bullock has sold his online transaction company for more than a thousand times the money in his bank when he started it. When the Pearce man developed eWAY 18 years ago, he had $50,000 to his name. On Friday, he sold it to American payment technology services giant Global Payments for $US50 million. Understandably, Mr Bullock feels a great sense of achievement from his brainchild that grew to doing 5.8 billion online purchases last year, or about a quarter of all internet transactions in Australia. “What this shows is that you can do anything in Canberra,” he said. “It is a beautiful place and there are a […]
Australia-Korea Business Council event with Senior Trade Commissioner Brett Cooper
Australia-Korea Business Council members and guests are invited to join us on Friday the 15th of April to hear from Brett Cooper, Senior Trade Commissioner Korea. Brett Cooper will provide an informal update on the Australia-Korea trade and investment relationship. Date: Friday 15 April 2016 Time: 7.30am – 8.30am Venue: Ernst &Young, Level 33, 680 George Street, Sydney Cost: Free A light breakfast will be provided. Limited places available. RSVP essential to [email protected] There are strong growth opportunities between Australia and Korea in the Fintech sector so this event is worthwhile attending. And for more information please click here.
Australians doing business in China
Trade Minister Steve Ciobo will lead one of the country’s largest business delegations ever assembled to Australia Week in China, this year held across several Chinese cities. The aim is to highlight commercial opportunities in various business sectors, ranging from agribusiness and finance to education and food. We asked four Australian executives doing business with and living in China five questions. They share the challenges and the opportunities of doing business in China, as well as the importance of “guanxi” — a concept largely credited to the Chinese and their approach to networking and relationships. What inspired you to do business in China? China is one of largest and most […]
ASIC talking to Singapore on fintech deal
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is talking to the Monetary Authority of Singapore about an agreement to ensure that regulation does not hinder the progress of fintech start-ups looking to operate across the countries’ borders. Fintech regulation has been a key agenda item at recent meetings of peak financial regulators across the globe and although the discussions between ASIC and MAS are at an early stage, it is understood both regulators are enthusiastic about seeing a deal come to fruition. The agreement would be based on a similar co-operation agreement between ASIC and the UK Financial Conduct Authority, which was signed just before Easter and was the first of […]
Ignition Wealth launches “Teams” automated advice technology for Financial Businesses
Ignition Wealth today announced the launch of their new technology solution ‘Teams’, designed to support professional financial businesses as they adopt automated financial advice. Ignition Wealth will lead the presentations at the Melbourne Afiniation Fintech Showcase with the launch of their new Teams product. The Melbourne Afiniation Fintech Showcase will take place on April 14 at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne. CTO Mike Giles will demonstrate the new Ignition Wealth Teams technology to a crowd of over 200 fintech professionals and investors. “The wealth industry has traditionally been heavily paper based and the first opportunity is to bring those processes, including buying and selling of stocks and reporting, into an online […]
Resisting Fintech disruption amounts to a loss of $13 billion in aggregated revenues
Sydney, Australia, 4 April 2016 – The Australian Banking sector is heavily regulated to prevent monopolies and collapses, and is guided by the Four Pillars Policy of the Australian Government which maintains the viability and separation of the “Big Four” banks: Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC), National Australia Bank (NAB), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ). Following the global financial crisis, in 2008, for reasons motivated by stability rather than customer satisfaction, consumers flocked to the ‘Big Four’ who benefited by recovering market share previously lost to the smaller financial institutions. While the Big Four are more dominant than ever, future bank profitability is more […]
New finance platform Skippr to boost innovation and growth with fresh perspective on cash flow management
New finance platform, Skippr, signifies a new direction for the fintech space. Helping businesses understand cash flow better and providing them with simple and accessible tools to optimise that flow, the new start-up connects both invoice finance and cash flow forecasting through one platform. Pat Crivelli, Founder of Skippr said, “SMEs are the backbone of our economy, but nearly half will fail as a result of poor cash flow. Empowering SMEs to take control of their finances means more competition, innovation, productivity and growth for Australian businesses. “Skippr’s platform helps SMEs not just access finance, but understand how to better manage it. Our technology provides more transparency and, […]
Fintech changes the shape of banking
Jesse McWaters is the project lead for disruptive innovation in financial services at the World Economic Forum. So in January, 2014, it seemed logical to bring together about 50 senior global financial services and banking types attending Davos to consider the impact of fintech. The judgement of the experts was clear. “Banks versus fintechs? No contest,” McWaters says. The banks were considered to be protected by their scale, by their levels of consumer trust and by the regulatory complexity of the financial system. The barrier was considered simply too high for fintech start-ups to become a threat. A year later, there had been a sea change in the mood of […]
