Slavery – Which companies score badly on modern slavery disclosure?

Some companies score really well when it comes to managing and reporting on the risks that their products may have been made or partly produced by slaves and some score really badly. The massive differences between the high and low scores on this index is perhaps the biggest surprise. Australia’s Modern Slavery Act (2018) requires Australian companies with annual revenue

Fintech success stories – rare like unicorns

Angel investor Aileen Lee coined the term “unicorn” in 2013 to describe a privately held start-up that reaches a billion-dollar valuation. They are so rare – mythological – they are called unicorns. This paper reviews the current fintech investment landscape in Australia and compares the outlook for fintech ventures with established financial business models. There are more than 733 recognised

Government review of payments finds cash is critical to economy

It was supposed to be all about new technology like cards, phones, online commerce, crypto and digital currencies but the government’s Payments System Review made a surprising finding. Cash is critical to the economy and must be protected. Yesterday, treasurer Josh Frydenberg released the long-awaited Payments System Review which investigated how Australia’s payment system is run and governed. The review recognises that non-cash

Do child custody / access arrangements continue in lockdown?

Most of NSW and Melbourne are in lockdown now. During lockdown, should children still continue with regular access visits to their father (or mother)? As a general rule-of-thumb, the less travelling around the community we do, the better. But fathers want to see their kids and mums want to know what the rules are around lockdowns and child access. Of

Government must get tough on Online Gambling

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services is holding hearings on Friday 13 August 2021 into the use of credit cards to pay for online gambling. Committee Chair, Andrew Wallace MP has expressed his concern about the “cost consequences” on families from allowing the use of credit cards and digital wallets to fund online gambling. These concerns are shared by many submissions to the

Missing Meals to pay off BUY NOW PAY LATER debts

Buy Now Pay Later users are missing meals and essentials to pay their debts, more government data has confirmed. Services like Afterpay, ZipCo, Humm, LayBuy and others are leading young people (in particular) into financial hardship, despite not being classified as credit providers. There are reportedly 9.1 million active BNPL accounts in Australia. 21% of BNPL users rack up late fees, ASIC has reported while 20%

Cash – Don’t leave home without it

When I have cash in my pocket, I’m in charge. Don’t leave home without it.

Bank outages prove Cashless society just a myth

Banks, card companies and financial institutions like to encourage cashless payment systems. Cashless payment systems generate surcharges, fees, transaction revenue, merchant service charges and consumer information that can be bought and sold. But they still can’t provide reliability of access and ensure their payment and bank systems are UP and running all the times when they are needed, which is

Aristocrat ‘aggressively’ moving gambling behind closed doors.

COVID ‘leveraged’ to promote home gaming Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX:ALL) is successfully transitioning gamblers to online and digital apps and games and away from ‘physical’ gaming venues such as community based pubs and clubs. This is removing problem gambling from public sight, away from the oversight of regulators, containing the issue to homes. Monitoring, welfare checks and harm minimisation efforts

Cash is still Australia’s Favourite way to pay

Actual real wallets are still more popular than mobile wallets Today Commonwealth Bank has issued media information suggesting that mobile wallets will  soon overtake contactless cards as a favoured way to pay for goods and services.  Commonwealth Bank says the dollar value of their total digital wallet transactions rose from $1.0 billion per month to $2.1 billion between March 2020