Finance

Australia’s online home loans marketplace, Joust.com.au, has launched a game changing solution for the country’s mortgage brokers to solve for the pain points of quality leads and customer contactability. Joust Marketplace, the trailblazer in the mortgage industry, has unveiled its groundbreaking new feature, Joust Connect. This new functionality is set to ignite the mortgage industry, catering to the demands of brokers seeking innovation and growth.

ARX Advisory LTD, a world-renown data-backed capital markets advisory, announced the expansion of its finance advisory practice, aimed at assisting both publicly traded and privately held companies in overcoming financial challenges. With a range of intelligence and AI-based tools, ARX Advisory is committed to empowering clients with the expertise and resources needed to navigate the complex capital markets landscape successfully.

Fortress Investment Group (Fortress) and Mubadala Investment Company, through its asset management subsidiary Mubadala Capital (Mubadala Capital), have entered into definitive agreements to acquire 90.01% of the equity of Fortress that is currently held by SoftBank Group Corp. (SoftBank), who have owned Fortress since 2017. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the deal is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Expensify, Inc., a payments superapp that helps individuals and firms manage money across expenses, corporate cards, bills and invoices, announced at ExpensiCon its latest feature, Expensify Chat, improving communication efficiency for accountants and their customers. Expensify has always been a go-to expense tool for accountants to manage their clients’ payments and spend, however most conversations around these transactions happen outside of the app, either in email or another chat platform. Constantly jumping between apps makes the communication process a disjointed experience, but with Expensify Chat, all discussions around money are streamlined into one place, finally cutting out the middleman.

Thai technology-driven auto leasing company Next Capital Public Company (Next Capital) has partnered with innovative global fintech Mambu, to launch a new suite of innovative lending products on Mambu’s SaaS cloud-native core banking and lending platform in just four months, enabling Next Capital to transform into a next-generation full-service digital lender.

According to Forrester’s report Financial Services Customer Trust Index, earning the trust of clients is crucial to driving revenue, especially in times of economic volatility. In Asia Pacific, the results show that client trust in banks, investment firms, and life insurers is lacking. Less than half of customers in Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore trust their banks, while less than a third in Australia, Hong Kong, and Malaysia trust their investment managers. Additionally, less than a fifth of customers in Hong Kong and Singapore trust their life insurers.

Barteos, an Aussie-based barter network and digital currency platform offering free access to new clients, launched and enables businesses to monetise idle or wasted capacity. Most businesses have wasted capacity which they can convert into a tradable digital currency called a ‘Trade Dollar’. This allows them to get assets, goods or services they need, through the barter network, without using their revenue, resulting in growth and better profits.

Visa Inc., a world-renown digital payments organization, announced that it plans to open a new global Technology and Product Hub in Poland that will be the first of its kind for Visa in Central and Eastern Europe. The Hub will house as many as 1,500 new tech and product hires over the next few years, as Visa invests worldwide to support its 24/7 development model for innovation and drives continued rapid growth in digital commerce and payments.

With merchants estimated to suffer over $48bn in eCommerce fraud globally in 2023 – 22% of that in Asia – Mastercard announced the expansion of its partnership with Vesta, the global payment fraud protection firm. Building on the two firms’ fraud detection collaboration, Mastercard will be integrating Vesta’s iron-clad Payment Guarantee™ and Payment Protect risk scoring solution into its Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MGPS) platform.

Crunchr, one of the simplest receipt app, has won the prestigious title of "Best Mobile App" at the 2023 Australian Web Awards held in Sydney on the 20 May 2023. The Australian Web Awards, renowned for celebrating excellence in web and app development, recognised Crunchr for its outstanding innovation, design, functionality, and overall user experience.