OFX launches new online seller service
OzForex Limited trading as OFX (OFX), one of the world’s largest international payment businesses, has today announced the launch of OFX for Online Sellers, a new online merchant solution that streamlines payments from international marketplaces such as Ebay and Amazon into bank accounts in USA, Canada, UK, Eurozone, Hong Kong, and Australia. The new product will offer a faster, more competitively priced transfer option to the millions of merchants that sell on global E-Commerce marketplaces in North America, Asia and Europe. Forty-five percent of the trillion dollar global online retail market is attributed to online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. Selling on international marketplaces means merchants can lose up […]
Welcome to the new world of ‘regtech’
During a speech at the Tyro Fintech Hub in Sydney on Friday morning, federal Treasurer Scott Morrison pointed to the promise of “regtech” – a new word that is increasingly rolling off the tongues of the global regulatory community. Regtech (an amalgam of “regulatory technology”) is a subset of fintech (financial technology). While fintech has captured the imagination of banks, entrepreneurs and investors around the world for its ability to enhance how customers experience core parts of banking like lending and payments, banks are interested in regtech because new technologies can be deployed internally to reduce the costs of complying with various regulations. Morrison told about 200 members of the […]
Nation must deepen the talent pool for fintech success
Success for Danielle Szetho, the inaugural head of industry body Fintech Australia, means an undisputed spot for Australia in the world’s top-five fintech hubs. Realistically, there’s no chance of knocking off London or New York/San Francisco as fintech’s twin global capitals. According to a February report by Ernst and Young, Britain sits on top of the pile, but only just. What it lacks in talent and capital — and it’s not a lot — is more than made up for by the highly accommodating government policy. In the US, it’s more a case of letting the market rip. Szetho reckons Australia’s biggest challenge is deepening the talent pool. Not surprisingly, […]
OFX celebrates a momentous $100bn transfers internationally milestone
MEDIA RELEASE: OFX, Australia’s leading international payments provider and Fintech leader, have today announced a significant milestone in their transaction history, reaching $100bn in international transfers since launching nearly 18 years ago. The announcement follows CEO Richard Kimber’s first financial year results, revealing the company exceeded $100m in profit for FY16. In the process of notching up their billion-dollar century, OFX have helped customers with more than 5 million bank-to-bank transfers. An estimated 31,000 properties have been bought or funded, over 10 thousand students supported and countless other weird and wonderful things financed. Whether it’s blocks of Italian marble for a sculptor’s next masterpiece, containers of pig’s ears […]
Next Bank Brisbane presents Brisbane’s first FinTech showcase
The Financial Services and Insurance Industry is Australia’s largest and fastest growing sector. It’s no surprise that the Prime Minister’s office is looking to foster the growth of Fintech to protect its greatest asset from the increasing threat from global disruptors. The Fintech industry is home to some of the best talent in Australia. Following the launch of multiple Fintech hubs in Sydney and emerging startup success stories from both Sydney and Melbourne you could be forgiven for thinking that Fintech in Brisbane doesn’t exist. Admittedly, the Next Bank Brisbane team felt the same way, until they started digging beneath the surface. “When we started searching from the Sunshine Coast […]
Fintech a $US1 trillion fight
Consultants Oliver Wyman has been talking to banking clients all around the world over the past few months about the concept of “modular financial services”. It’s the coverline adorning one of the firm’s latest research pieces on the impact of information technology on the future of banking. Even as the equity prices of US fintech poster children like Lending Club and OnDeck are pummelled as capital markets reassess valuations, incumbent banks around the world show no sign of losing interest in fintech. Indeed, if the interim results of three of Australia’s big four banks last week were any guide, thinking about fintech in the C-suite is only accelerating. The earnings […]
Meet eight fintechs changing financial services
When you have just seven minutes to sell your idea as the next big thing to change banking and investment, every moment counts. Thirty of the country’s best fintechs are pitching to a room full of 160-plus bankers, brokers and venture capitalists at the Grand Hyatt ballroom in Melbourne, where their story, business plan and even looks are all being judged. From payments to wealth management, peer-to-peer lending and crowd funding, fintech start-ups are taking aim at the heart of the financial services industry and a pot of revenues that Goldman Sachs estimates at $4.7 trillion. The banks are all vying for a stake in these disrupters before they join […]
Identifying customers in the digital era
Digital identity poses an array of challenges for the consumer and the merchant. The push to perform Know Your Customer (KYC) checks online (or 100 point check as it’s known in Australia) has dramatically increased, with AML/CTF obligated merchants seeking to acquire customers remotely, and in most cases seeking to release the tether to bricks and mortar entirely. Austrac defines KYC under the AML/CTF legislation as “documentation which sets out a business’s approach to ensure that it can effectively identify, verify and monitor its customers and the financial transactions in which they engage, relative to the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing”1. Austrac also allows electronic verification, where […]
