Big four bank NAB has responded to the growing popularity of buy-now-pay-later services among millennials eschewing credit cards, by introducing a “no interest” credit card that instead charges a monthly fee. The NAB StraightUp Card offers credit of up to $3000, and has a “no use, no pay” feature, meaning that if there’s a $0… Read more »
The Commonwealth Bank’s VC fund, x15 ventures, is holding a second Xccelerate fintech pitch event, with the winning idea landing $150,000 from CBA. The virtual pitch on November 3-4, and applications for Xccelerate are open until September 27. You can apply here. The shortlisted startups will be notified by October 23. x15 ventures is running Xccelerate… Read more »
A disturbing video purporting to show a suicide is reportedly doing the rounds on the popular short video app TikTok, reigniting debate about what social media platforms are doing to limit circulation of troubling material. According to media reports, the video first showed up on Facebook in late August but has been re-uploaded and shared… Read more »
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Australia’s first ever incubator, Cicada Innovations. To date, Cicada Innovations has incubated more than 100 startups, and helped more than 300 companies raise in excess of $450 million in venture capital and government grants, create hundreds of jobs, build local manufacturing capability, file more than 500 patents and… Read more »
Elevate NZ Venture Fund – the government’s new venture capital fund run by New Zealand Growth Capital Partners (NZGCP) – is investing NZ$21.5 million into the Blackbird Ventures’ New Zealand fund. Blackbird, led by partner Samantha Wong, opened shop in New Zealand 12 months ago, and its local fund will focus on startups seeking Series… Read more »
Around 186,000 users of Service NSW – the New South Wales government’s “one-stop shop” for everyone from licences to birth, deaths and marriage, property and the law – will be sent a registered letter notifying them of a data breach labelled a “criminal attack” that saw more than 3.8 million documents (738 gigabytes of data)… Read more »
While Australia officially slips into the first recession in 30 years, it is clear that we need more jobs. But we must embrace technology to be globally competitive. There is no other way. The Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology was established in September last year, and following an extensive round of public… Read more »
Facebook has announced it will ban publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram if a proposal to force tech giants to pay for news becomes law. The announcement follows the release of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s draft news media bargaining code, under which Google and… Read more »
The elephant entered the buy now, pay later (BNPL) room on Tuesday and the rockstar stocks of the ASX took a massive hit as a result. PayPal announced the launch of its ‘Pay in 4’ platform in the US, which mimics Afterpay’s 4 instalment solution. The announcements sent Australian-listed BNPL shares into a nosedive, with… Read more »
Facebook’s threat to ban publishing and sharing of local new stories on its platform, as well as Instagram, is “ill-timed and misconceived” according to the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) chair Rod Sims. The ACCC has been charged by the government with shepherding the proposed “News media bargaining code” through to law. The proposed… Read more »
Facebook will block news from Australian publishers on its platforms, including Instagram, as well as stopping users from sharing local and international news if the Morrison government’s plans to make it and Google pay publishers for news become law. Facebook’s ANZ managing director Will Easton says the proposed laws forcing the US tech giants to… Read more »
The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) has issued a warning to all New Zealand businesses to be prepared for cyber attacks, following almost a week of daily attacks on the New Zealand stock exchange (NZX). The attacks have caused outages, sometimes for hours, of NZX’s public-facing website since Tuesday last week. Today it continued trading… Read more »
Video sharing app TikTok has turned to expat Australian digital media executive Vanessa Pappas to replace former CEO Kevin Mayer after he resigned over the Chinese-owned company’s fight with President Donald Trump, who wants the company sold or shut down. Pappas is general manager of the US and Australia NZ, having joined TikTok in November… Read more »
Have you used Google lately and been greeted by a yellow warning saying that the way Australians search on Google is under threat? To understand why these messages are appearing, Media Files interviewed former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Professor Allan Fels, and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI),… Read more »
FY20 loan originations of $450.9 million, down 10.1% on FY19 FY20 total revenue of $142.1 million, up 4.2% EBITDA loss of $19.5m (FY19: -$0.8m) EBITDA $4m, excluding Covid-19 provision, and a one-off loan receivable adjustment of $5.5m Total ANZ customers up 43.5% over 30 June 2019 Customer repayments since June 30 better than expected Prospa… Read more »
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