Tim Strube

Innovation

The world is edging closer to becoming cashless

Vendor and customer payment services company Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski writes in Wired that In 2010, 40 per cent of Swedish retail transactions were made using cash; by 2014 it was down to 20 percent and it's still falling. E-commerce, in contrast, is growing. The huge impact of

Australia

Three reasons Westpac's Robert Rennie thinks the A$ is cheap - and one it will likely remain so

The A$ hit 7-month lows versus the US$ late last year, 6-month lows versus the Canadian dollar and 3½-month lows versus the NZD and on the RBA TWI measure. That leaves the A$ looking increasingly ‘cheap’ on a range of crosses. So will the A$ continue falling? Robert Rennie,

News

Joakim Reiter: Global Trade and Payments Grow Together

Experts have noticed recently that global trade is not growing. An I.M.F. study calculated that a 1 percent increase in global growth increased trade volumes by 2.5 percent in the 1990s, while in recent years, the same growth has increased trade by just 0.7 percent. Ripple

News

Declining rental yields give global property a new appeal

With rental yields tightening around Australia and house price growth cooling, should Aussie investors look beyond our borders? Investors may be able to take advantage of a possible currency upside. Ben Kingsley, chair of the Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) told News.com.au “If there is an improvement

FinTech

The Traditional Payments Player Role In The FinTech World

As the payments ecosystem continues to evolve, FinTechs are leading the charge in transforming everything from operational efficiencies to business models, and especially the customer experience. But how do the industry’s incumbents fit into the new world of payments? Joby Orlowsky, VP of business growth and development for Discover

FinTech

Building a fintech ecosystem: Why customer experience should come first

If banks weren’t already feeling the pressure from financial technology (fintech) startups, they should be now: Fintech companies are officially mainstream. A report conducted by the tech company LinkedIn, the advisory firm Capgemini and the non-profit Efma found that half of banking customers around the world now use at

Expats

Where to find the world's highest-paid expats

"Expats ranked Switzerland highly for both financial and personal well-being criteria," said Dean Blackburn, head of HSBC Expat. "The combination of high salaries and excellent work culture has placed Switzerland at the top of the careers league table." "Expats in Sweden and Germany enjoy benefits

Banks

How to stop banks behaving badly

Stephen Bartholomeusz writes in The Australian "On the eve of Christmas Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse reached a settlement agreement with the US Department of Justice for their roles in the subprime crisis that triggered the wider financial crisis in 2008. There were sighs of relief all around that

Currency

How the world's currencies got their names

From the pound to the peso, the ruble to the lira - you may think the names of currencies have nothing in common. A recent blog post from the Oxford Dictionaries website showed that many of the names the world uses for its money have similar origins. Read more in

Exchange Rates

Foreign Exchange Calculator: The Real Cost of Money Conversion

Do you know what the actual foreign exchange money conversion rate is? You probably know what conversion rate your bank is charging you, but did you know there is another "higher" rate known as the market rate? In fact, the market rate is the only real rate to

Currency Conversion

Fed Distributed Ledger Tech Report Singles Out Interledger

In the latest report from the Federal Reserve Board on “distributed ledger technology in payments, clearing, and settlement,” the future use of distributed financial technology looks more certain than ever. The exhaustive document details potential and known use cases, the path to adoption for new solutions and legal issues and

FinTech

Singapore Is Beating Hong Kong in Asia's Fintech Race

Tax benefits, government help and easy access to regional markets led Joe Seunghyun Cho to choose Singapore as the headquarters for his six financial technology companies, rather than base them in the rival hub of Hong Kong or his native South Korea. “We are quite impressed by government agencies here,

International Money Transfers

Skip the bank and take back control

Flash Payments was launched to provide fast, secure and well priced foreign exchange transfer services as an alternative to the existing opaque, siloed and inefficient banking networks. Front and center is an exceptional user experience and there are no hidden fees. Built on a common global infrastructure and bringing new

FinTech

The world's best Fintech conferences and expos to attend in 2017

The massive growth of the financial technology industry rolled along in 2016 due to a host of new financial industry trends and numerous fintech investments. With all that growth, it's crucial for anyone in the financial industry to stay educated in order to get ahead of the pack.

Banks

CBA and NAB admit impropriety in foreign exchange trading

The Age writes "Commonwealth Bank and the National Australia Bank have entered into enforceable undertakings with ASIC after foreign exchange traders were revealed to have front run orders on personal accounts and triggered client stop-loss orders. "The extraordinary behaviour is laid bare in separate enforceable undertakings (EUs) from

FinTech

The Future of Banking: Growth of innovative banking fintech services

Banking is a rapidly changing industry, and the biggest paradigm shift that has occurred is the move to digital-only banks. Millennials, in particular, are moving more frequently toward digital banking. And as a result, they're walking into their banks' traditional brick-and-mortar branches less often than ever before.

Exchange Rates

The $5 trillion trap - and how to bridge it

Every day around $5 trillion is traded in foreign exchange. While much of it is speculation (trading only for the sake of making a profit), foreign currency transfers are essential to enabling global trade and remittances keep families, and in some areas countries afloat. There are many factors driving foreign

International Money Transfers

Foreign currency transfers. The modern shell game.

Big institutions bouncing your money around the world like a pinball to multiple fee-charging banks using a complex and expensive relationship network – a desperate stand-in for an efficient transfer solution – all operating at your expense and hidden from your scrutiny by a global agreement to keep the system totally opaque

FinTech

Can FinTech Outcompete Banks by Betting on User Experience?

Bill Gates said that banking will always be needed. But banks as we know them could easily disappear. And FinTech is all about winning changes and everyday improvements. In 2015 venture capitalists raised $19.1 billion USD to support FinTech revolution. With the five biggest banks controlling nearly $15 trillion

Market Update

Aussie dollar slump 'knee-jerk' reaction to Fed

Zac Crellin writes in the SMH "Strong hints by the US Federal Reserve that interest rates will rise at a faster pace in 2017 have sent the greenback flying against most major currencies but analysts doubt the Australian dollar will slide much further." "The Aussie dollar plunged

Payments

$582 billion in global remittances: interactive graph

Remittances in 2015 totaled an estimated $582 billion according to World Bank figures. These cross-border payments make a huge impact in the countries that receive them. World Bank figures show that in 2015, remittances to Egypt were worth four times as much as revenues from the Suez Canal. In Nepal

Digital Currency

Flash Payments Uses Ripple and XRP

Ripple announces the launch of a brand new foreign exchange payments solution by Flash Payments to improve cross-border payments in Australia. Built on Ripple and using its digital currency XRP for liquidity, Flash Payments delivers transparency, near real-time settlement and transactional control to users, while cutting the cost of international

FinTech

A cheaper way to pay

In today's Australian, Richard Gluyas writes - If ever there were a banking niche ripe for disruption, it would be cross-border payments. It almost defies comprehension that Amazon can deliver physical goods faster than a bank can make a credit entry. The reason is that remittances still meander

Banks

Foreign Currency Transfers: Everything You Need to Know

You set up a foreign currency transfer. The money leaves your account. It disappears for days. And then it turns up (significantly reduced) in the recipient's account. That's just how it works right?# But have you ever wondered what happens to your money in that in-between

News

The Australian writes: A great fintech border invasion

Richard Gluyas writes about Flash Payments in The Australian: If ever there were a banking niche ripe for disruption, it would be cross-border payments. It almost defies comprehension that Amazon can deliver physical goods faster than a bank can make a credit entry. The reason, of course, is that remittances