Banking was one of the most popular reasons people used the internet in 2014-15 – and that trend is expected to fuel growth in the number of people buying and selling shares over the internet, according to Ben Bucknell, chief executive of OnMarket BookBuilds (OMB).
In 2014–15, the ABS said the four most popular online activities were: banking (72%); social networking (72%); purchasing goods or services (61%); and entertainment (60%).
The ABS report, ABS Household Use of Information Technology, Australia 2014-15, reveals most households who accessed the internet did so through a desktop or laptop computer (94%), followed closely by accessing the internet via mobile or smart phones (86%), then via tablets (62%). The mean number of devices used to access the internet at home by all households was six, though for households with children under 15 the number was seven.
“This highlights a very important point: that the internet is increasingly being accessed via smartphones and one of the main reasons we are doing that is for banking activities such as transferring money between accounts and paying bills.
“Technology has long democratised the availability of information. If you observe trends in mobile internet usage, combined with the availability of sophisticated analytical tools in a society where one in three Australians own shares directly, then you can see there is a very strong case for companies considering Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) to use OnMarket,” said Bucknell.
“OnMarket is an Australian fin tech that recently launched the world’s first direct access portal into ASX IPOs and placements. Our own tool is a game changer – it enables Australians to directly buy into IPOs, which we have opened up through our app and website. For the first time, companies can directly offer shares to retail investors and investors can be guaranteed fair access,” Bucknell said.
“The OnMarket allocation algorithm ensures investors get treated equally and fairly. Our platform is built to generate instant notifications and to host free company information and research. All of this can be done on a desktop or mobile device such as a smart phone, which also meets the key trend of investors accessing information and managing their finances on mobile devices,” he said.
According to the ASX 2014 Share Ownership Study, more than 6.5 million Australians are direct shareholders and another 2.5 million are aspiring investors keen to start investing, many of them aged less than 30 years.
OMB’s presence as a fintech disruptor was firmly established when the technology was launched by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in October 2015, who said at the time: “The brilliance of this is simply that it makes it easier to buy, to trade. This will open up the investment market considerably.”
