The RBA has cut the interest rate by 25 basis points from 1.75% to a historic low of 1.5% in an effort to stimulate the economy, specifically boosting growth and reducing the Australian dollar. Concerns have been raised about the subsequent effect that this will have adverse effects on the property markets. By decreasing the interest rates, many are worried that this may result in a further inflation within the property market.
RBA governor Glenn Stevens has addressed the concerns that surround the Australian property market, stating that the banks themselves will be cautious in lending within the property market and hence solving this issue themselves. However, it seems rather callous for the RBA to leave the fate of the Australian property market and by extension, the Australian economy in the hands of four private institutions. Banks are allowed to have market power and they are allowed to make lawful decisions; they do not possess the same mandate to protect the Australian economy as the Government and the RBA.
Inflation is substantially lower than the current 2-3% target in addition to this, low growth figures announced within the retail market places foreshadows another cut in the near future. The pressure is rising within the Australian economy. If the RBA was to drop interest rates again, their collars might be a bit tighter. Without the buffer room, they could fall victim in the hands of a liquidity trap. In addition to this, if Donald Trump was to win the U.S. election, it is forecasted that a major sell of U.S. dollars may occur. This would drop the rates of the $USD and subsequently push the $AUD even higher. A higher dollar means less exports, and a decrease in competitiveness within the global economy.
Even more alarming is the fact that the banks have not truly passed on the interest rate cut. The Big four banks have passed on about half of the cuts, keeping the rest for themselves. The stimulatory effects of the cut will not be fully realized as a result of this, and it’s concerning as this has been the trend over the last decade when considering interest rate cuts. The banks will have to explain their decisions in-front of the House Economics Committee. Unfortunately, this committee isn’t one that can enforce the law. It is the ACCC that must investigate whether there is a violation of market power.
We’ve seen this happen before. In 2012, the RBA held the rate at 4.25% of the cash rate, however the Big Four banks acted independently and increased the interest rate for the benefit of their own share-holders. With such a small cluster of banks deciding the Australian economy, it is worrying to think about the power that this financial oligopoly has. The Government seems to be extremely lenient on the banks and the statements made by Glenn Stevens support this as they consistently put the ball in their playing field.
Auditing, Education, and Centralised Decisions will enhance Smart-Contract, Blockchain Technology
There’s a particularly interesting case that involves Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) suing Goldman Sachs for about $1.2 billion dollars’ worth of trades that the two organisations had made a deal on.To put some context into this case, LIA was an organisation set up by Libya and several other neighbouring countries. Unfortunately, the firm had practically no legal or financial experience, and were heavily reliant on consultants and investment companies giving them advice.
Allegedly, Goldman Sachs developed a relationship with LIA and began to develop trust for future business transactions. They did this by offering elusive Goldman Sachs internships to LIA’s employees; providing business class flights and accommodation to exclusive conferences in exotic cities like Dubai and Morocco.Several years later, Goldman Sachs allegedly advised LIA to take several trades, of which Goldman Sachs would profit approximately USD$350M+. LIA purchased these contracts and paid GS’ commission, however, several months later they realized that they had fallen into a big hole. The trades weren’t stock, shares or bonds, they were allegedly complex derivatives.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of legal and financial expertise at LIA, they weren’t able to understand that, as a result of failure, they would not be able to recover a single penny of their $1.2 billion dollar investment.
There’s an obvious issue here. Goldman Sachs didn’t necessarily break the law, they may have acted unconsciousably.
The contracts weren’t illegal or invalid, they didn’t coerce LIA into doing so, but LIA believes that there was injustice here. LIA believes that they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into, and Goldman Sachs took advantage of that. Whether or not there is a violation of the law is up to the court to decide, but I think it is apparent that there is a major education gap within financial institutions, especially between poorer countries and richer countries.
When smart-contracts enter, this gap becomes even larger. Complex derivatives may be hard for a firm like this to understand, however, when we look at the Ethereum security vulnerability that happened over the last thirty hours it’s obvious that smart-contracts represent an even larger hurdle to jump over.
Ethereum is a “decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.” It is essentially programmable money, that is held within a Decentralized Autonomous Organisation(DAO) that is a mutual fund. There is no active management that manages the money or moves it; the money (Ethereum) is programmed to do that. As a result, people purchase Ethereum for US dollars and invest within the mutual fund. This ether can be converted back into US dollars if an investor wants to exit.
On Friday morning, 17 June 2016, the DAO was hacked. In simple terms, the DAO was programmed to promote decentralisation and encourage the creation of child DAOs by rewarding a split of the fund to result in additional ether (money). The hacker found this feature, and used it to take millions of dollars out of the DAO and into his own account.Now here’s where the interesting part kicks in. The DAO is a smart-contract, which means the code itself is the contract. The code controls and sets forth all the terms of creation; the hacker did not do something wrong with the code. The code had a flaw in it. However, it is its own contract, so the hacker didn’t violate the contract. This vulnerability was within the confines of the contract; it might be considered ‘morally wrong’ but it’s arguable whether it is considered a theft.
Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, is proposing a “soft fork” that will prevent the attacker from being able to make valid transactions, effectively freezing the funds. The stolen funds are locked in a “Child DAO” and are unable to be moved for another 27 days, Buterin says — giving the community time to debate and adopt a potential solution. “This will later be followed up by a hard fork which will give token holders the ability to recover their ether,” Buterin writes. (This solution would not involve any “rollback” or negating any transactions.)The decentralised nature of the DAO — and of Ethereum and digital currencies more generally — means there is no central authority that can simply flip a switch and make changes. Decisions have to be reached by community consensus.
There is a clear inherent issue with this, as obtaining consensus from 2 or three people might be difficult, but when you starting to talking in 1000 or millions, this is very difficult. Typically it is usually that you look for a decision to be affirmed and those who disagree can opt out of the participation, otherwise you will end up chasing your tail for a very long time.
There’s going to be a huge market for smart-contract auditing, and centralised decisioning. For these smart-contracts to fulfil their goal, they’ll need to be a lot more secure than what happened and clear processes to step through to resolve the issue without too much delay or discord.
Disclaimer
All comments or repetition of facts are only alleged facts and obtained from press reports not from the writer’s own due diligence. The writer is not making an affirmation of the facts and this post is only the opinion of the writer.
‘Blockchain’ is a hot word in financial technology at the moment.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what the word meant until a few weeks ago, when I had a bit-coin veteran break it down for me. Essentially, Blockchain is a massive statement of all the transactions on a specific network. The blocks, think of them as a bank statement, are ‘chained’ together to create a cohesive document of every single transaction that has occurred on a specific currency, the most popular instance is Bitcoin. According to the World Economic Forum, 10% of global gross domestic product is now stored on blockchain technology.
So how do smart-contracts fit into this?
Smart-contracts are heavily based on the theory of asymmetric information. When one party has more information than the other, perhaps they know that the buyer will have trouble getting the money back if the product is performed to a poor standard, an asymmetric information issue arises. Smart-contracts are used to negate the issues of asymmetric information and other issues. Put simply, a buyer might want to increase his websites Google SEO rankings. He contacts a marketing agency to ensure that he is placed third for the key-word “banking”. They both agree on a price and initiate a smart-contract. Essentially, the money is stored in a block that is inaccessible by either of them until the buyers company is ranked third for the SEO key-word he asked for. If they disagree, both parties decide a third-party mediator to decide whom the money should go to.
It’s a relatively simple concept with a lot of potential for financial technology in the future. It has opportunities to be used in bonds, shares, derivatives, and many other financial instruments where the event can be encoded into the smart-contract. Think about the potential that this sort of contract could have if it was available to the retail market? A financial industry without any inefficiency or risk of financial intervention by a third-party intermediary.
Simply put, it’s an escrow system that is “smart”. It can be programmed to watch for specific events, and if they are carried out, it can release money. The moment a company turns a profit for the financial year, the respective smart-contracts can instantly release a dividend to their share-holders.
The two largest limitations is that it has no notion of state. A project is not “completing”, it is either incomplete or complete. This might have issues for more sophisticated financial instruments or technology, but it is certainly an interesting field to watch over the next few years. These have a possibility of completely revolutionising financial technology!
Access to Finance for SMEs
Access to Finance for SMEs is critical to the growth of Australia and its position in the world:
Small and medium sized enterprises (SME) make up a massive portion of Australia’s broader economy. SMEs hire up 70.5% of private sector employees, an absolutely astounding number, and contribute 57% of the industry value added by business. As an economy, our success is heavily related to the success of SMEs. Australian politicians realise the importance of SMEs in the economy, see the latest budget for reference. They’re attempting to decrease tax rates, and increase cheap employment options for SMEs.
SMEs have had a rough few years. The global economy has come out of recession, and there is still a lot of uncertainty in capital markets and credit liquidity. Lending has tightened over the last few years, and that has put a lot of small businesses in a position which they haven’t previously been in. A third of SME’s with external finances find it hard to access finance .
To start with, let’s look at CSEF. CSEF has a lot of promise. It requires market validation and it’s a great way to enable start-ups which end up innovating, increasing the number of jobs, and the efficiency of our economy.
In addition to this, the Government’s 20% non-refundable tax offset capped at $200k per investor provides a major incentive for Angels to get involved with accelerators and venture capital. However, P2P lending is something that isn’t really focused on.
We’ve talked a lot about the regulations surrounding P2P lending and crowd sourced equity funding. Without repeating myself, the Government has taken very slow and cautious steps when dealing with P2P lending and CSEF. P2P lending has allowed SMEs to access external finance, relatively easily as well. On Marketlend and most other P2P lenders, the marketplace system rewards SMEs who are compliant, and provide as much information as possible. It allows individual investors to diversify in what they believe in, whilst bolstering the Australian economy.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Australian Government addresses the rapid expansion of CSEF and P2P lending. It’s a balancing act. Increasing compliance and regulation results in a decrease of use within these services, whilst reducing compliance and regulation might lead to very worrying results.
First loss, provision funds, insurance and structures which conservatively manage the investors risk are more likely to become common place after incidents like the lending club in US.
Investors are likely to expect more “skin in the game”.
During the global financial crisis we saw debt structures where the originators needed to invest amounts of 1-11% subordinated debt in prime insured mortgages that were secured, and all debt issuers requiring an audit when issuing debt.
It is not a distant thought that investors are likely to expect the same in the marketplace lending space. It usually starts from the US and then it will knock on around the world.
At Marketlend we have tried to get ahead of the curve by:
a) completing a due diligence with a large global accounting firm,
b) invest in each loan and as a result offering first loss protection on each loan,
c) increasing our provision on each loan to 1%; and
d) obtain full recourse insurance on the debt finance facilities.
We never try to suggest we can protect investors against losses on loans, and whislt we can be diligent in our origination, processing and collections, there will always be losses.
It is lending, and lending has risks. Investors should obtain their own independent legal and financal advice prior to investing in any investment on Marketlend.
Introduction
Now that the dust has settled, MarketLend has decided to take a look into the Australian Budget that was released last week. To put it in context, Australia has enjoyed massive prosperity and growth over the last decade. China’s economic boom has allowed Australian businesses to grow and export heavily to Asia, which has allowed the last decade of budgets to be nicely padded with tax revenue from businesses. However, we enter a decade where China’s growth begins to stabilise, Australia begins the journey to budget surplus, projected for the
China
However, a major issue within the budget is how Australia will react to increases of growth within China over the short-term. China’s growth has picked up recently, due to an increase in M&A and debt, which might provide misleading indicators for many Australians. By indexing our finances on a short-term growth within China, we may fall into a major rabbit-hole in the next five to six years.
Small Business Tax Deductions
On a positive aside, Turnbull’s budget looks to bolster small-businesses. The budget proposes to decrease small company tax rates, and increase small company thresholds over the next ten years. A company is considered “small” if it is valued under $2M. A small company is taxed 28.5% annually, whilst a large companies is taxed 30%. By 2022-23, companies are considered small $1.0 B and is taxed 27.5%.
Multi-national tax
A more contentious tax is the multi-national tax, the Australian diverted profits tax will impose a 40% levy on profits that are transferred off-shore for transactions that do not have sufficient economic substance.
Tax-Creep
To combat tax-creep, the government has increased the middle-class threshold from the previous ($37,001 – $80,000) to ($37,001 – $87,000). The objective is to combat tax creep, which occurs when inflation pushes a workers wages into a higher threshold without any relative gain. This is aimed to keep wages within the middle-class.
Venture Capital Investment
The Government has changed its rules, allowing an increase in fund size from $100M to $200M for near VC partnerships and early stage VC limited partnerships. This would seek to incentivise more VC and hence, more investment.
Conclusion
It was a very safe and cautious budget, Turnbull was obviously reluctant to do something drastic with an election in the two months. With conservative cuts, and a push towards ‘innovation’ it seems like Turnbull is holding his cards close to his game. We predict that more drastic changes will happen after election on either side.
As the online lending industry grows out of a worldwide economic slump, it is starting to get a little crowded. With 200 or so different providers that offer credit to smaller businesses, competition is becoming more fierce and prevalent. One of the bigger names in the market, OnDeck Capital, deals with a drop in shares following a less-than ideal financial forecast, and the industry is feeling the heat. However, this stress may be exactly what the lending industry needs to clean out the mess.
Many online lenders are now more akin to payday lenders, that have annual percentage rates reaching 50% or more. As there are many untrustworthy lenders out there, it can be troubling for small businesses to know where to go. Moreover, as the industry starts to get more crowded, there is a greater need for a clearing out of the industry of these unscrupulous business lenders. Ironically, Marketlend business is flourishing partially because of small business owners realising the costs of the online lender after the loan is taken out. They work with Marketlend to obtain a more competitive and risk diverse solution. This is because the interest rates are transparent, similar to the banks and obtaining the risk diversity of several investors instead of one. For example, we recently refinanced one client, where the lender obtains all the day’s takings right into their account and after receiving their payment, distributes the proceeds of his business back to him two to three days later. This caused delays in his cashflow and difficulty in knowing the rates they were charging. Marketlend has seen that some of the funders of these online lenders have been unable to fund Marketlend loans as they have a much higher interest rate threshold.
This shakedown may come sooner rather than later, as banks are opening their doors to small businesses once more, and the government speaks of introducing legislation similar to the national credit code for small business owners. As the alternative lending industry blossomed through the bank’s financial crisis, it is difficult to gauge how it will fare with a healthier finance infrastructure. A general consensus amongst experts show that as the alternative lenders have yet to deal with a ‘down cycle’, it is untested ground for them. As a result, many alternative lenders are scrambling to become more appealing.
Alternative lenders are hoping to examine things such as rent payment histories, or a borrower’s social footprint to indicate risk for a loan. However, these new credit scores are yet to be tested and may cause some serious problems for business owners should economic conditions take a turn for the worse. Another problem would arise as smaller lenders may extend credit without proper risk assessments. This could potentially cause an increase in the number of defaults on the books.
It is likely that the alternative lending industry will see substantial amalgamation over the next year, as smaller lenders cannot keep up with the changes required. The good news, though, is that this should remove many of the high-interest loans currently out there. Initially, this shrinking of the industry may cause problems for small business owners, however in the long run it will make for a fairer business environment.
It often seems that we don’t know where to look without seeing a new start-up business or investment opportunity. Your funds no longer need to go into a huge company, either. Most of the opportunities afforded to you allow you to invest in far smaller businesses instead.
We’ve seen the rise in power of Uber and Airbnb, which are set to disrupt the taxi industry and the accommodation market respectively, and new stock market innovations such as Acorns AU, which lets entry level players enter the trading game by simply investing their petty change.
When you’re looking to grow your holdings and invest in growth – whether in peer-to-peer methods or by investing in start-up business – there are a few things you need to keep in mind. It’s clear that smaller players are entering the market more and more. Individuals are able to grow their capital exponentially, starting with a relatively tiny minimum investment amount. No longer is aggressive growth the sole field of multi-nationals. Now, singles can play the game, too, without the backing of a massive company – in fact, it has become a whole lot easier to enter the market and start trading.
Start small and diversify large
As the playing field has expanded hugely, you are no longer restricted by minimum spends and you do not have to stake all your money on one player (who may lose their stock market footing). Instead, innovations in investment opportunities mean you’re able to pay a smaller initial fee and see your revenue come in straight away. Paying a smaller initial sum means you’ll have more leftover to put into other investments, too. It makes no sense to place all your investing power in the one basket. Instead, choose a few companies or individuals to invest in so that, in the case that one doesn’t work out, you have some to fall back on.
Now, this wouldn’t be possible if you had invested everything you have in one place, would it? Complete risk transparency Especially with peer-to-peer lending, you’re able to see the terms before you settle, meaning you can see your expected financial growth before you start.
Unlike the big indexes such as Dow Jones and NASDAQ, which can take a tumble without anyone predicting it, you’re able to predict your revenue in clearer terms. And with start-ups growing at the rate they are, you’ll see a business grow from tiny to potentially multi-national – and reap the profits as well.
With alternative lending becoming a more prominent part of modern business, it is important to stay abreast of changes in the industry. Composite lending is a mixture of different models and brings with it a great deal of benefits from marketplace lending.
Composite lending as a model combines two common models: balance sheet lending and marketplace lending. In effect, it brings in the benefits of both to the same model. Balance sheet lenders focus on specializing their loans, using shorter term high rate loans or merchant cash advances. Generally, these types of loans focus on profitability over a short period of time. Alternative lending lowers the risk of investments by transferring it to investors, but drops the overall interest rate of the loan. Composite lending as a model hopes to bring these both together.
By combining the parts of the balance sheet model with marketplace lending, the composite model creates a bridge between the two. The model retains part of the portfolio on the balance sheet funded by the company’s capital. This is done while using marketplace lending to obtain outside investors to finance the rest. These two models, when brought together, can offset the risk while maximising returns quickly.
If you ask a composite lender why it is a better choice, they will tell you that moving forward from a balance sheet to this model of composite lending helps every rung of the ladder. The initial company sees a high return on their portfolio, while still collecting fees from the newly originated portfolio. As a result of the newly originated loans being sold to investors, the lender doesn’t have as much risk associated with the portfolio too. This brings great benefits, and it allows for massive scalability with marketplace lending.
Bringing in composite lending allows for a level of flexibility that businesses have never experienced. It is easier to add new products to portfolios, as well as enter into new avenues and markets using the portfolio. This can make your portfolio look healthier and ultimately, appeal to new investors. Even better, by using the balance sheet statistics as its measure of success, balance sheet lenders can justify the worth of the portfolio to new investors.
This composite model of lending creates a plethora of benefits from both marketplace lending and balance sheet lending. This combination helps with scalability as well as lowering the associated risk within the portfolio. As the two models work together, composite lending creates a path to squeeze the best out of both approaches. However, regulators and detractors are not so positive about this type of lending.
Here are some results composite lending can lead to:
- a) Selective “cherry picking” loan exposures offered to investors,
- b) Delivering higher risk loans at lower margins to investors;
- c) A margin squeeze on investors, e.g. giving them the loans with lower margins
- d) The balance sheet lender taking the more profitable margin loans
- e) A lack of transparency between investors and composite lender as to what loans are funded by the lender.
- f) Complexity in the advent of a liquidation where a borrower may have loans on the balance sheet and in the marketplace.
As a result, investors must be careful when considering an investment in a composite lending platform; they need to understand the incentives for the lender to keep the loans on the balance sheet, when to sell to investors, what is the selection process, how conflict is managed, the reporting structure, and realization process.
As is always the case, an investor needs to perform his due diligence when investing. The more complex the structure or the more greater control by the lender, leaves an investor vulnerable to unscrupulous participants in the composite lending market.
Marketlend does not support or discourage composite lending. Furthermore, Marketlend does not run a composite model at this time. Marketlend does invest in every loan on its platform.
Industry conservatives have been having an insecure decade.
As new ideas and businesses enter the market, their influence within their own respective industries decreases. However, conservatives often re-assure themselves by believing that successful innovations are ‘fads’.
They believe that innovations are only popular due to speculation, and they’ll die out as quickly as they entered. The taxi industry is probably praying for a change in the wind to blow away Uber and other ride-sharing apps. Banks and investment companies are waiting for the next ‘recession’ to come in, and demonstrate that peer to peer lending, aka P2P lending is, again, a fad.
This way of thinking isn’t unique to the 21st century. I’m sure that the radio industry believed that television was a fad; I’m sure people believed that computers were a fad, and the list goes on. Often, industry conservatives sit on the wrong side of history. Personally, I don’t believe their insecurity is unwarranted; no executive wants to believe that they are becoming irrelevant. However, the dismissive rhetoric that these conservatives spread is dangerous.
Innovation is a corner-stone to our society. It has consistently increased our standard of living and continues to do so. However, it is fragile and must be nurtured. High barriers to entry dissuade start-ups. Some industries seem impossible to penetrate, until they are penetrated. The taxi and financial industry share this commonality; it seems impossible to change something as established as the taxi industry or the financial industry.
But it has happened. P2P lending is offering something that banks aren’t able to offer; they are cutting out the middle-man. But reducing the complexity of the banking system, investors and borrowers are able to safely interact with each other. This is not something pinned to economic success; it isn’t something that will simply fade away in the next recession.
Many financial conservatives have brought this point up, that P2P lending will until the next recession. However, often people forget that almost every financial intermediary is under-fire within a recession. Something of the largest financial institutions, Fannie Mae and Lehmann brothers, have crumbled in a recession. It is often greed and risk that destroy financial intermediaries within a recession, and these are not exclusive to P2P lending.
As we enter an age where financial technology becomes increasingly relevant, we must remember that the core failings of financial intermediaries are not necessarily based on their processes. We must avoid dismissive rhetoric, and ensure that we continue to encourage innovation rather than shun it.
Innovation is about making our lives easier, we don’t use the internet to bank because we think it is trendy, we do it because it is easier and save money. Initially it may be cool to use Uber or get a peer to peer loan but you are not going to keep doing it if it doesn’t make things easier and saves money.
Recently I used a P2P currency provider and I admit it was very cumbersome, however I did so with the hope that going forward it will save me money and make it easier. It actually did.
It was unfortunate they could not make it easier first time, and maybe in the future we will see that part solved through innovative solutions and more competitors.
This brings me back to what the Government might want to consider when promoting its innovative policy, that is the reduction of complexity and making it easier for the target, SMEs to access the funds and support they need.
For example, there is no reason to make the process of gaining a grant so cumbersome that the only business who apply are those with time on their hands to do so.
When you talk to SMEs they will tell you that is the biggest issue they have, they have no time.
Over the last few articles, I have discussed the new Government’s plan to enter the ‘era of innovation’. The most significant to MarketLend and many other financial technology companies offering fintech solutions was the amendments made to crowd-sourced equity funding. By decreasing compliance costs and barriers to entry, the Government has made CSEF a viable means for smaller public companies to raise capital. This is a great way for many established start-up’s to raise more equity, however, for our ‘innovation era’ to be sustainable, we need a method to consistently originate new start-ups.
The Government’s first step towards incentivizing start-ups is the tax reform. Personally, I believe this is a great method of attracting angel investors. The tax incentive will be a 20% non-refundable tax offset on investment capped at $200,00 per investor, per year, and a 10 year capital gains tax exemption for investments held for three years. This is a great step in the right direction, but what really creates an ‘era of innovation’?
To first analyse this, I’ve decided to look at one of the most successful start-ups ecosystems in the world: Silicon Valley. The Valley’s prosperity and success was based on several factors: state of the art Universities with great funding, a large amount of venture capital, and a consistent amount of Government spending within the area. Silicon Valley had an enormous competitive advantage for start-ups than almost any area in the world. Great minds, plentiful and willing angel investors, and Government expenditure attracted start-ups to utilise the new research developed across America.
I am not advocating for Australia to replicate Silicon Valley, rather, I am advocating for Australia to continue to develop a competitive advantage for investment and innovation. Moving to the United States or Europe should never be a pre-requisite for a successful Australian start-up. We should look inwards to develop a competitive advantage. Consistent investment in education and technology are key staples to developing a similar environment to Silicon Valley.
Australia is a resource based economy; the majority of our exports are resources. We’ve enjoyed a high standard of living, and an extremely powerful economy proportionate to our population. China’s high demand for resources has allowed us to have a very cruisy ride through the GFC but our ride might begin to have some bumps.
An important but scarcely used statistic is economic complexity. Economic complexity is the measure of production characteristics, essentially demonstrating how complex and versatile our exports are. Counties with a high-level of economic complexity are not immune to recession or lulls in the economy but they are not entirely pinned to the success of a few countries. Australia ranks 71st in economic complexity, ranking as one of the lowest OECD countries in this list. We need to change. Fast.
Innovation is a great way to increase the diversity of our exports. We are already seeing Australian start-ups like Atlassian change the global perception of Australian start-ups, and if the Australian Government is able to efficiently respond and facilitate investment and creation, we might see an insurgence of successful Australian start-ups.
The Turnbull Government is on the right track, but we need consistent effort put into developing a competitive advantage. The movement towards an ‘innovation era’ cannot simply be empty rhetoric or PR tool to use for an election.
