Blockchain to revolutionise online transactions
IT’S only been around for eight years, and has started life with a reputation sullied by drug dealers and online vigilantes, but there’s a new technology on the rise which could revolutionise how we transact online. And whether it leaves a swath of destructive disruption among large, incumbent businesses — think banks and share registries — in its path is yet to be seen, although it has been widely predicted. Blockchain is the technological innovation which underpins the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. So far Bitcoin has proven to be unhackable and untraceable — a key benefit if you are, for example, running the world’s largest online drug marketplace, a la the Silk […]
Brisbane Is Playing Host To Australia’s First Cashless Cafe
Do you use your credit card or your phone to pay for your morning coffee, or are you still holding on to that pocketful of coins? Sydney-based coffee roastery and cafe chain Pablo & Rusty’s is opening Australia’s first cashless cafe in Brisbane, ditching the notes and coins in favour of credit cards, phone-based payments and even smart coffee cups. With a number of successful locations already opened across Sydney (which do indeed take cash), Pablo & Rusty’s was planning the opening of their Brisbane store when they had the idea to make it entirely cashless. “We were just thinking through some of the logistics of how to manage cash […]
LoanDolphin fintech dives into banks’ mortgage market
After eight years at Westpac, self-described “ideas guy” Ranin Mendis finally put one into action. Today, a few months after co-founding LoanDolphin with Rod Dutra in February, Mednis says the start-up has distributed more than $50 million of mortgages on its online auction platform, building on the fintech sector’s assault on the $1.5 trillion home loan market. “The mortgage space is a massive market so if you can crack it then that’s obviously a great space to be in,” says Toby Heap, a founding partner at H2 Ventures, which has invested $100,000 in LoanDolphin. “What we really liked about LoanDolphin is they’re tackling it from a pretty fresh perspective.” LoanDolphin […]
Sydney FinTech Valiant announces major partnership with Vow Financial
Valiant, member of FINTECH incubator Stone & Chalk will announce today an official partnership with the Yellow Brick Road Group (Yellow Brick Road and Vow Financial) at the Commercial Conference at The Sheraton Mirage Gold Coast. The partnership grants the Group exclusive partnership access to Valiant’s business loan marketplace platform and its range of non-bank small business lending solutions. Immediately, the Valiant marketplace solves the broker network’s concerns with sourcing, comparing, and securing funding for traditionally hard to finance SMB customers. Alex Molloy, Managing Director of Valiant: “The challenge for brokers is that serving customers in the short term funding space takes an unbalanced amount of time – and for hard to fund customers, […]
Australian FinTech Company Profile – RateSetter
COMPANY: RateSetter FINTECH SECTOR: Peer-to-Peer Lending WEBSITE: www.RateSetter.com.au CONTACT: [email protected] PHONE: 1300 768 710 FOUNDED: 2012 FOUNDER(S) / CEO: Daniel Foggo – CEO DESCRIPTION: RateSetter provide a transparent peer-to-peer marketplace where lenders and borrowers, empowered by technology, can transact together and share the benefits. KEY STATISTICS: Value of loans Funded: $43,807,549 Number of Loans facilitated: 2,578 Average Loan Value: $16,993 Average Loan Term: 38 months Average Borrower Age: 39 Average Borrower Income: $90,513 Male – Female: 69% – 31% Number of People registered: 61,215 Applications under consideration: $4,186,959 Enquiries in past 30 days: […]
The Invoice Market appoints Head of National Sales and Referral Partnerships
Peer-to-peer alternative financier The Invoice Market (tim) has strengthened its senior executive team with the strategic appointment of Bernie Kelly as Head of National Sales and Referral Partnerships. Kelly comes to tim with an impressive track record of establishing financial services businesses and designing financial product solutions around the globe. Most recently he was Managing Director, International Operations for PolicyLink. In this position, Kelly grew the business, captured significant market share, and successfully negotiated exclusive strategic alliances with international asset managers, investment banks and global life companies. In commenting on the appointment, tim CEO, Angus Sedgwick said “I’ve known and worked with Bernie over the past 25 years. […]
ASIC to build fintech start-ups a ‘regulatory sandbox’ to test ideas
The corporate regulator will allow fintech start-ups to test their ideas with real customers for a period of six months without having to hold a financial services licence, under a new “regulatory sandbox” proposed by Treasurer Scott Morrison in the May budget. In a consultation paper released on Wednesday morning, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said the creation of the sandbox will allow financial services start-ups to attract investment and get to market faster by providing “limited testing and concept validation to occur without businesses needing to comply with all the usual regulatory obligations”. The sandbox was proposed by the federal government as part of its plan to create […]
The ten year gap in financial services technology
In my estimation, technology in traditional financial services lag other industries by about a decade. Having trouble remembering what your online life was like in 2006? Here’s a benchmark: Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone are each more than 10 years old. Sure, the word fintech has been all the rage the past couple of years, but it’s not a good sign when the word “tech” is wrenched into a moniker to explain what the companies involved actually do. We don’t refer to Uber as “taxitech,” just like we don’t think of Airbnb as “hoteltech.” It just works. It’s how we live. I’m not sure who coined the term fintech, but I can confidently say it’s been popularised […]
