This week in everything from the ASX to Silicon Valley

WEEK STARTING OCTOBER 8

Happy Friday! Australian neobanks are back in the headlines and I think it's fair to say, they're disruptive from afar, but far from disruptive (yet). See what's good:

BIG TECH

Payments giant 'Square' releases a buy now pay later scheme. Any merchant in the USA can now effectively offer credit. This is more acquiring-new-market (smaller retailers) than disrupting-an-existing-one (Afterpay)

AUSTRALIAN FINTECH & STARTUPS

Digital bank 'Up' officially launches. At the moment it's simply a prepaid charge card wrapped in a mobile app. It's worth checking out nonetheless

Another digital bank, 'volt', is allowing users to sign up with their PayPal accounts. This will turn out to be (a) an own-goal, considering PayPal's dominance in financial services, or (b) a great acquisition strategy

Westpac customers can now deposit cheques via mobile

GAFA

Google released the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL

Google shut down its social network 'Google+' after a security lapse. Google had a social network?

Facebook released a new video messaging device named 'Portal'. It was actually meant to be released in March but the go-to-market was delayed by the CA scandal

Opinion: don't buy the portal

US tech stocks tanked on Thursday due to rising interest rates, amongst (a lot of) other things. -$191b wiped off of Big 5 (GAFA & Microsoft)

POTPOURRI

Instagram tests tapping instead of scrolling through posts

Long read: How to manage your attention without smashing your phone and retreating to a log cabin. A refreshing argument explaining that although we need to limit social media use, it's dangerous to remove it completely

COOL STARTUP OF THE WEEK

Run an Empire - an augmented reality running game where the distance you cover becomes your 'kingdom'. The territory you virtually capture can be usurped by other runners if they run a similar course or into part of yours. It's a brilliant example of gamifying exercise through AR, which I personally think is a massively underutilised market. Pokemon Go had exercise as a positive externality, but making exercise the core product is genius and socially beneficial

TRIVIA

(a) What is 'graphophobia' the fear of? 

(b) In the phonetic alphabet used by the US military, it's the only letter that has the same name as a warrior people?

(c) They begin with the same 3 letters: What is the most densely populated country in Europe & the least densely populated in Asia?

(d) What piece of literature was originally published in 1915 under the German title "Die Verwandlung", meaning "The Transformation"?

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I'm heading overseas to a FinTech conference next weekend to check out the latest and greatest in digital ID, payments, credit, alternative lending and more. I'm adding the final touches to my blog to document my learnings - I'll be sure to link it to you all next week.

Have an amazing weekend, you deserve it.

Feedback always welcome @ james.david.grafton@gmail.com