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30AUG2021-MON
RaboBank partners with Coles Group to deliver sustainable finance
Monday 30th August 2021
RaboBank partners with Coles Group to deliver sustainable finance
This week, food and agribusiness banking specialist, RaboBank, has partnered with Coles to help deliver sustainably linked loans (SLL). Coles Group announced on Wednesday its commitment to providing 1.8 billion dollars worth of loans to grow sustainable business.
Funding roundup August 23 – August 27: E-bike Startup Tiller Rides raises $550,000 in 24 hours from crowdfunding
Key startup fundraising rounds from this week:
Medical technology Seer raises $34 million
Artificial intelligence provider Pi.Exchange raises $2.75 million
Quantum Brilliance secures $13 million in seed funding
E-bike Startup Tiller Rides raises $550,000 in 24 hours from crowdfunding
Doctor training platform Oscer scores $5 million seed round
Drone venture Carbonix lands $6.3 million seed round
Indian gold-based Credit Platform Indiagold Raises $12 million
Choose a hybrid working solution that connects your people and their devices in any space
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, around 65.5 per cent of employees worldwide were forced to work from home, with Australians quickly embracing remote working during the first wave. The Families in Australia Survey: Towards COVID Normal was released in June 2021, just before the latest harsh lockdown restrictions. It found that among the employed survey respondents, 67 per cent were sometimes or always working from home, compared to 42 per cent pre-COVID.
Mitigating cyber risk in the cloud
In March this year, a cyber-attack disrupted live broadcasts on one of Australia’s national television networks.In April, an attack forced the operator of four hospitals in Melbourne to postpone some elective surgeries, and soon after, several Queensland health service providers had to process patients manually when another attack brought down IT systems.Then, in May, a cyber-attack forced the shutdown of a pipeline that carries 45 per cent of the US East Coast’s supply of diesel, petrol, and jet fuel.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that payroll jobs declined by 2 per cent in the last weeks of July, with a significant drop in locked-down NSW. According to the report, payroll positions in NSW fell by 3.7 per cent in the two weeks leading up to July 31. “The latest fortnight of data coincided with growing restrictions in NSW in the fourth and fifth weeks of the lockdown, including a standstill in construction activity,” said Bjorn Jarvis, the ABS’s head of labour statistics.
On the first day of a government-funded scheme, nearly 1400 Canberra firms affected by the Covid-19 lockout applied for support payments, and a further 1000 have begun their applications. Chief health officer Dr Kerryn Coleman updated the ACT government on potential changes to public health settings. Businesses may now apply for up to $10,000 in support payments from a $75 million joint ACT and federal government scheme. More than 8700 enterprises are likely to apply, having expressed an interest in the scheme previous to its launch.
After being inspired by a bank’s helpful new tool, Australians are pocketing millions of dollars they may not have realised they were entitled to. Every year, 10 to 30 per cent of government benefits and rebates go unclaimed in practically every industrialised country throughout the world. Customers have filed over 1.5 million claims, up from over 1 million in February of this year. CBA’s chief data and analytics officer, Andrew McMullan, said the rise occurred when the bank began using its data and analytics capabilities, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to contact and help customers who were potentially affected by various degrees of lockdown.
The Federal Court has ordered NAB to pay a $18.5 million penalty for repeated violations of fee disclosure statements. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) initiated the lawsuit against the big-four member in December 2019. According to ASIC, the court determined that NAB violated the law on multiple occasions by charging fees for personal advice without providing clients with compliant fee disclosure statements. The court also decided that NAB had failed to send timely fee disclosure statements to clients and had deceived them about how much they had paid for services and what services they had got.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) participant Afterpay stated that functionality from Square’s Cash App may be merged into its own Money by Afterpay service. Money by Afterpay is the company’s own finance app, built on Westpac’s cloud-based banking-as-a-service platform, which provides Afterpay and its customers with some banking functions. Money by Afterpay has been in staff pilot since July and is slated to become national in October of this year.
According to a Guardian analysis, Britain’s economic rebound from the winter lockout is slowing due to a lack of personnel and supplies as a result of the double whammy of COVID-19 and Brexit. Despite the government’s relaxation of most pandemic restrictions, consumer scepticism appears to have increased in the last month as the Delta strain drives a stubbornly high infection rate. Meanwhile, global supply chain instability and workforce shortages have put a strain on UK enterprises.
The Indian government has increased its efforts to accelerate the country’s adoption of electric vehicles. The Heavy Industries Minister has stated that the government is aiming to build charging infrastructure across the country in order to encourage more people to purchase electric automobiles. He stated that many ministries and government departments are working together to establish charging stations on highways and in cities. According to the minister, the government has announced a 1.5 trillion rupee production-linked incentive scheme to encourage automakers to produce more electric vehicles.
After making the necessary safety improvements, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approved the Boeing 737 Max, to fly again in Indian airspace. After two crashes in five months, Boeing 737 Max jets were grounded worldwide in March 2019. These planes were recently approved to fly again by regulators in several nations, including the United States, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates, after receiving necessary hardware and software changes for safety.
