November
Corporate rewards platform Pay.com.au hits $630m valuation, eyes ASX
The Melbourne small business payments business sees plenty of opportunity in the US, where its new funds will be used to support a big expansion.
Why you must ‘innovate or stagnate’ as the market transforms
Tokenised securities are being embraced by market players from Nasdaq to Westpac and will allow share trades to settle within minutes, not days.
ANZ ventures chief pops up at fintech after 1835i closure
Former head of ventures David Rowe has landed at private asset administration start-up GXE.
The fintech that made $32m lending to customers banks reject
Source Funding has written about $2 billion worth of loans many to SMSFs which major lenders, with their “cookie-cutter” approval processes, often avoid.
Fighting AI-boosted scams has tripled this fintech’s revenue
Eftsure is in the business of “fighting bad guys”, its chief executive Jon Soldan says. It’s made $36 million from helping companies block fraudsters.
The start-up getting Aussies to Wall Street by partnering with Harvard
Fast Starters company Spark Finance is breaking down wealth as a barrier to great education, offering financing to Australians studying overseas.
Billionaire Shahin family takes stake in Perth payment fintech Bless
The investment is the latest in start-up plays from the family that sold its OTR petrol station empire to Viva Energy in a $1.2 billion deal two years ago.
Bank tech start-up Constantinople doubles losses, seeks more funding
But the co-founders of financial platforms business said they were focused on growth and not concerned about reaching profitability in the short term.
Massive growth leaves Airwallex on track for $3b revenue
The fast-growing start-up backed by China’s Tencent says it is on track to double sales over the next year, as it prepares to pursue a sharemarket listing.
October
Liberals fume over Tech Council chair’s $2m Climate 200 donations
Coalition MPs are furious the industry lobby group is chaired by Rich Lister Scott Farquhar, questioning its political independence from the teal movement.
ASIC clarifies which crypto products need to be licensed
Commissioner Alan Kirkland said the new guidance should provide clarity for companies seeking to innovate around digital assets.
Private assets admin platform GXE secures expansion funding
US-based real estate-focused investor Second Century Ventures and Sydney early-stage venture capital firm Archangel Ventures led the Series A round.
ANZ’s Matos unveils ambitious five-year plan to catch bigger rivals
The long-awaited plan ends an $800 million share buyback and instead focuses on expanding frontline staff and overhauling a much-delayed technology upgrade.
Two former Xinja directors disqualified under APRA’s new powers
Eric Wilson and Craig Swanger have been disqualified from acting as “accountable persons” of any bank for eight and ten years respectively, APRA said on Thursday.
Winklevoss twins’ Gemini crypto exchange set up in Australia
The billionaire twins portrayed in The Social Network, an Oscar-winning movie about the founding of Facebook, have entered the Australian crypto market.
CBA moves its entire core banking system into Amazon’s cloud
The migration of Commonwealth Bank’s retail, business and institutional systems is an Australian first and one of the biggest moves to the cloud by any bank globally.
Treasury considers small lender exemption from open banking
A proposal to exempt smaller banks from the data sharing regime would ease their cost burden, but critics say it would be a backward step for customer choice.
ANZ expands cost-cutting focus to tech systems
After its cost-cutting, attention has shifted to the bank’s technology strategy and the likely scaling back of Shayne Elliott’s pet project, ANZ Plus.
September
Ex-NAB bankers awarded Australia’s first stablecoin licence
ASIC has approved a stablecoin issuer – Macropod, backed by Mark Carnegie’s crypto firm – for the first time.
Big lenders are building AI agents to do the work of business bankers
Business banking is emerging as a key battleground in the race among the big four to build artificial intelligence tools to drive efficiency gains.