2019年8月15日
TransferWise's new debit card promises to slash overseas fees by a tenth
You’d think that the Australian love of overseas travel would mean we’d have figured out how to transfer money. Unfortunately, our long-running oligopoly of four big banks — the main foreign exchange providers — has prevented any real competition in the space.
London-headquartered currency exchange platform Transferwise launched its new debit MasterCard in Australia and New Zealand and it promises to be 11 times cheaper on average than its competitors.
Well, the problem is banks typically charge a whole range of hidden fees that Australians aren’t always aware of — $2.14 billion each year. Traditional FX services swap your dollars directly and charge you a fee for the service. TransferWise devised an online system where people sending money abroad could swap it directly with others sending money in the opposite direction — a peer-to-peer money transfer system that enables it to cut out high transaction fees.
You verify your identity online and we’ll send you the card in the post for free. Then you just have to activate it, top it up and away you go. You can then choose to either convert it all at once into various currencies you plan on using or you can keep it in Australian dollars. Each time you spend money overseas the card will just do its own conversion in the background from the cheapest combination of currencies that you have on your balance.
In this example, someone spends $5,000 in Europe directly and withdraws $2,500 more in five transactions. You would expect to save at least $154 and as much as $294 compared to other Australian providers.
The ASX has lost more than $50 billion in a single day after US recession fears
The Australian stock exchange (ASX) has been battered on Thursday after Wall Street had its worst day of 2019. The ASX 200 — comprised of the country’s 200 biggest public companies — plummeted 1.8% within the first 15 minutes of the session. Heading into the afternoon, the market continued to slump. By market close, it had shed 187 points or around 2.85%.
Trading platform CommSec confirmed that it was the single worst day in more than two years, with 94% of all listed companies making losses.The S&P 500 — made up of the largest 500 US publicly-traded companies — and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fared little better falling 2.93% and 3.02% apiece.
US Treasuries are debts issued by the US government. When investors buy these, they essentially are loaning the US government money that is gradually paid back in installations, plus interest (also known as yield). The period over which they are paid back depends on the type investors buy. The recession warning overnight was the fact that the yield on 10-year US Treasuries dropped below those paid on 2-year Treasuries. Typically the reverse is true because investors want to be better compensated for investing for longer periods of time. Its inversion signals that confidence is dwindling in the US economy’s short-term future.
This Aussie-invented women's safety app can now by activated by voice
A voice-activated feature using Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant can now be used on an Australian-founded app helping to prevent attacks on women and vulnerable people.
WanderSafe app in 2018 to help women travel more safely. The free app works together with a hand-held beacon that features a 140-decibel alarm and a bright light for lighting up a potential threat.The beacon also has a button users can press that sends an SOS message and GPS coordinates to three people in their contact list who can respond with help.
Now Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant have been incorporated into the app, allowing users to signal for help using their voice. Users must first create their own phrase for the voice assistant to recognise. When the phrase is uttered, an SOS message and exact GPS coordinates of the user’s location are sent to three pre-selected contacts in their phone.
It’s purely a phrase that again would be so rare to utter in normal conversation as to not cause a false alarm.” She then gave the example “Edelweiss” opposed to a more common word such as “chai latte”. Once it’s set up correctly – as saying, ‘Hey Siri, Beetlejuice’,” Rodriguez said. “And that would unlock the phone, open up the WanderSafe app and begin to notify the three preset contacts … as to where they are and that they are in need of assistance urgently.”
WanderSafe is active in 50 countries, with some of its customers including Revlon, Booking.com and Deloitte. In addition to the voice activation feature, it now also includes crime data heat maps which show users the most dangerous streets and suburbs, trafficking data or incident that have happened.
Rodriguez developed WanderSafe together with the help of retired CIA executive, Thomas Pecora, to help women feel safe in general and while travelling. She said in a statement, “In Australia for example, one in six women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a current or previous partner from the age of 15.”
