PayPal ‘miles ahead’, welcomes rivals to the ecosystem
PayPal’s global head of product, Bill Ready, is confident his company’s dominance in digital payments is set to continue, declaring PayPal is just scratching the surface of its potential as it enters the Fortune 500 for the first time. Mr Ready, who remains responsible for PayPal’s Braintree unit after it was acquired in 2013 and runs PayPal’s engineering operations, said the company was miles ahead of the competition. “This is something we can solve better than anyone else in the world,” he said. “We can control the process end to end, in a way that consumers don’t have to do any extra work and the merchants don’t either.” According to […]
Square powers Kanye West “Pablo” pop-up stores Australia, the US & Canada
Square is making selling Yeezy. Kanye West announced today that Square is the exclusive point-of-sale at Kanye’s “Pablo” pop-up stores in Australia, the U.S., and Canada this weekend. The previous Pablo NYC pop-up store reportedly generated more than $1 million in a weekend from fans eager line up for blocks to purchase Kanye’s “The Life of Pablo” clothing collection. Square Reader, which launched in Australia in March 2016, will be powering the Melbourne and Sydney Pablo pop-ups with point-of-sale and credit card acceptance using the smallest, most mobile and most affordable card payment device in market. Customers will be able to check out quickly with Square and start wearing […]
Mint Payments wins two prestigious innovation awards
Payments processing technology provider Mint Payments is pleased to announce that its innovation has been recognised twice in the past week, having been named as an ABA100 Winner in The Australian Business Awards 2016 for Business Innovation and being listed at number 42 in the Australian Financial Review’s Top 50 Most Innovative Companies in Australia. The Australian Business Awards recognise organisations that prioritise innovation and technology as drivers of local and international markets. ABA100 Winners demonstrate a commitment to technologically transformative innovation through business initiatives and position themselves as industry leaders. The AFR Top 50 Most Innovative Companies in Australia is in its fifth year, and ranks the […]
Apple Pay: Banks ask for help from ACCC in fight over digital payments
The big four banks are used to being the big guys in town, but Apple is bigger than all of them combined. Apple has made its name and fortune on a closed system and Apple Pay, a mobile payment service and digital wallet, is another platform that does not connect with the systems of other providers. That has become the sticking point with the banks, which have been developing their own ‘e-wallet’ offerings that Apple is refusing to accept. “This is what they’re concerned about. It’s not really about consumer choice. It’s about maintaining their monopoly position on these interchange fees and maintaining control of their consumers,” said Dr David […]
Money for nothing, cheques for free in the sharing economy
THE bank of mum and dad is receiving a welcome cash injection as a growing number of households put a price on the things they previously gave away for free. More households are renting out a spare room, car sharing, selling goods and services and even lending to each other as the “sharing economy’’ expands, research shows. According to polling by RateSetter, some households are earning up to $120 a month. On the downside, however, all those people who benefited from the “free economy” are now having to wait their turn, or pay for it. Free rides, spare rooms, and even the kids’ old books and toys are increasingly thin […]
Kerry Agiasotis of WUBS: Win-win when rivals turn partners
One of the world’s largest non-bank providers of international business payment solutions says aspiring fintech companies should seek to pursue partnerships with their big company rivals rather than fighting them if they want their ideas to reach their full potential. The chief executive of Western Union Business Solutions, the dedicated business payments unit of the New York Stock Exchange-listed Western Union Company, said the firm was increasingly looking to partner with fintechs and other start-ups. WUBS is primary spot foreign currency trading provider to 20 per cent of the SME market in Australia and secondary provider to another 20 per cent, including the big four banks. It has more than […]
BPS Technology acquires Entertainment Publications
Leading channel enablement and payments platform provider BPS Technology Limited (“BPS”, “BPS Technology” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce the successful completion of its underwritten $27.5 million institutional placement. Net proceeds of the capital raising will be used to fund the transformative acquisition of Entertainment Publications Australia and New Zealand (“Entertainment” or “Entertainment Publications”), a leading B2C deals platform with 12,000 SMEs, 18,000 NFPs and 550,000 members, and for additional growth/working capital. The consideration for the Entertainment Publications acquisition is $22.5 million in cash and 2,659,574 in BPS shares. The combination of BPS and Entertainment brings together two proven, profitable and scalable businesses with significant growth potential. […]
zipMoney – User Experience
We here at Australian FinTech are mad mountain bike riders. So when one of us – me – decided it was time to buy a new bike, this time a road bike, I thought that instead of just walking in and paying cash or dumping it yet again on the credit card, why not utilise an Australian FinTech company to assist with the purchase, interest-free. And here are the reasons: We here at Australian FinTech wanted to see how these FinTech companies work, how easy it is and how they perform; how much effort it is to apply and get interest-free credit; how ingenious the technology is; we wanted to […]