Finance

Navigation for News Categories Head of the NZ Stock Exchange Mark Peterson said the time was right to stand down. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas The head of the NZ Stock Exchange (NZX), Mark Peterson, has resigned and will leave in April next year after close to a decade in the position. He said he

The cryptocurrency market recorded more than $669 million in net liquidations on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. The altcoin market accounted for the lion’s share of the $563 million in long liquidations during the past 24 hours. According to market aggregate data from Coinglass, the ETH and XRP trading pairs recorded net liquidations of about $126

In a recent interview, Sal Gilbertie, CEO of Teucrium Trading, opened up about his firm’s experience in the crypto ETF space and why he’s backing XRP. He said that the SEC was initially hesitant. They asked Teucrium and others to withdraw their filings, citing low liquidity in the futures market. Sal recalled that the government’s

Jim Cramer revealed he intends to “own” Bitcoin and Ethereum to protect his children’s financial future. He views these cryptocurrencies as a hedge against the growing U.S. national debt and potential dollar depreciation. Cramer emphasized the importance of digital assets in diversifying traditional investments amid economic uncertainties. His stance highlights increasing mainstream acceptance of Bitcoin

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently made headlines by granting approval for Bitwise’s new spot crypto ETF, which includes XRP. However, just as the crypto community began celebrating, the SEC issued a stay order, putting the launch on hold. This means the ETF cannot officially go live yet. The reason? The SEC wants

Square has launched Square Handy, a compact and durable mobile POS terminal designed for Japan’s digital economy. Weighing just over 300g with an IP54 rating, Square Handy supports payment processing, inventory management, and order acceptance via a 6.2-inch touchscreen. Ideal for busy retail and restaurant environments, it integrates with Square’s POS app for seamless operations.

Vadoo.tv is an AI-powered platform designed to streamline the creation, hosting, and distribution of professional-grade videos. Catering to businesses, educators, marketers, and content creators, Vadoo.tv offers a suite of tools that simplify video production and enhance audience engagement. Key Features AI-Powered Video Generation: Vadoo.tv enables users to convert text prompts into dynamic videos, complete with voiceovers, subtitles, and background music. This feature supports multiple languages, facilitating global reach. Customizable Video Hosting: The platform provides secure, ad-free video hosting with a customizable player. Users can personalize the player’s appearance to align with their brand identity, ensuring a cohesive viewer experience. Advanced Analytics and Marketing Tools: Vadoo.tv offers detailed analytics dashboards, providing insights into viewer engagement and video performance. Additionally, it includes marketing tools such as call-to-action prompts and lead generation forms to enhance audience interaction. Podcast Hosting: For audio content creators, Vadoo.tv offers podcast hosting services, featuring unlimited storage and bandwidth, customizable podcast pages, and integration with major podcast directories like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Who is it for? Vadoo.tv is tailored for a diverse range of users, including: Content Creators: Individuals seeking to produce engaging videos efficiently. Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs): Companies aiming to enhance their marketing strategies through video content. Educators and Trainers: Professionals looking to create educational videos and training materials. Marketers: Teams needing to generate promotional videos for campaigns and social media. Pricing Vadoo.tv offers several pricing plans to accommodate different user needs: Starter Plan: Priced at $19 per month, this plan is suitable for individuals starting in content creation. Pro Plan: At $39 per month, this plan is ideal for users looking to improve their content quality. Advance Plan: For $99 per month, this plan caters to users managing multiple clients or large-scale projects. Each plan includes features such as real-time analytics, user analytics, funnel optimization, automated reports, AI data predictions, advanced charts, and integrations. Additional options like full domain customization (CNAME) and extra team members are available for an extra fee. Final Thoughts Vadoo.tv presents a comprehensive solution for video creation, hosting, and distribution, integrating AI-driven tools to simplify the video production process. Its customizable features and robust analytics make it a valuable asset for businesses and content creators aiming to enhance their video content strategy. Visit vadoo.tv for more. Read More

In today’s fast-paced business environment, efficient meeting management is crucial for productivity. Instaminutes is a tool designed to streamline this process by providing AI-powered meeting summaries and insights. By integrating with popular platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco Webex, Instaminutes aims to enhance the way professionals handle their meetings. Key Features AI-Powered Summarization: Instaminutes utilizes advanced AI algorithms to transcribe and summarize meetings, extracting key points and action items to provide concise summaries. Real-Time Transcription: The tool offers live audio-to-text conversion during meetings, allowing immediate access to notes and facilitating prompt follow-up actions. Integration with Meeting Platforms: Instaminutes seamlessly integrates with various meeting tools, including Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco Webex, ensuring compatibility with existing workflows. Collaboration and Sharing: Users can share meeting summaries and key takeaways with their teams via Slack, email, or over 50 other integrations, promoting effective communication and collaboration. Security and Privacy: Instaminutes employs state-of-the-art encryption technologies, such as AES 256 and SSL encryption, to ensure that recordings and meeting notes are securely stored and accessible only to authorized users. Who is it for? Instaminutes caters to a diverse range of professionals and organizations, including: CXOs: To stay on top of investor, mentor, and team meetings. Managers: To increase productivity in scrums, sync-ups, and team meetings. Sales Representatives: To boost sales by efficiently summarizing sales calls. Consultants: To log key client needs during meetings. Developers and Designers: To track action items in scrum, sync-up, and team meetings. Investors: To log pitches and filter promising startups. Students: To record Zoom classes and obtain class notes. Pricing Instaminutes offers several pricing plans to accommodate different user needs: Pro Plan: Priced at $9 per user per month, this plan includes 500 minutes of transcription and summarization, summary notes, soundbites, speaker identification, key event detection, and more. Intelligence Plan: At $30 per user per month, this plan offers 2,000 minutes of transcription and summarization, along with additional features like topic tracking, pattern intelligence, engagement analysis, and CRM integrations. Final Thoughts Instaminutes presents a comprehensive solution for professionals seeking to enhance meeting efficiency and productivity. Its AI-driven features, seamless integrations, and robust security measures make it a valuable tool for businesses aiming to optimize their meeting processes. By providing concise summaries and actionable insights, Instaminutes helps users focus on what matters most, ultimately contributing to better decision-making and improved outcomes. Visit instaminutes.com for more. Read More

Government blocks Fair Work Commission independence by banning penalty rate absorption models that could simplify Australia’s complex 994-rate retail award system. The Labor government is introducing legislation that will prevent Australian businesses from negotiating with employees to absorb penalty rates into higher base salaries, even when workers would receive substantial pay increases. The new Fair Work Act amendments, introduced as one of parliament’s first bills this week, prohibit any arrangement where penalty rates are incorporated into base salaries – regardless of whether employees would be financially better off under such arrangements. Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth announced the legislation responds to Fair Work Commission cases where employers sought to modernize pay structures, but business groups warn the intervention undermines workplace flexibility and productivity at a critical economic moment. What this means for your business The legislation directly targets current Fair Work Commission applications, particularly from retail employers seeking to offer simplified salary arrangements. Under the new laws, businesses cannot offer employees the choice to trade penalty rate structures for higher, more predictable base salaries. For the retail sector alone, this affects potential arrangements for workers covered by the General Retail Industry Award, which the ARA says currently spans 96 pages and includes 994 different pay rates. The complexity creates significant compliance challenges, particularly for smaller businesses trying to navigate payroll obligations. Workers like retail employee Daniel, who relies on $85 weekly in penalty rates to supplement a $600-700 base wage, would be prevented from opting into alternative arrangements that might offer greater income security through higher salaries. Industry response The Australian Retailers Association has labeled the move as government overreach that contradicts productivity objectives. ARA CEO Chris Rodwell argued their Fair Work Commission application offered a “commonsense option” with a 35% base salary increase for retail managers choosing annualized salaries. “This application is absolutely consistent with the government’s stated intent when it initiated the FWC’s independent review of Awards,” Rodwell said. The ARA proposal included safeguards and never sought to remove penalty rates from awards entirely. The intervention comes just weeks before the government’s August productivity summit, creating what Australian Industry Group CEO Innes Willox calls “dark irony” – fast-tracking legislation that reduces workplace flexibility while seeking productivity improvements. The ARA warns the decision “runs contrary to the government’s stated ambitions to lift productivity in this term of government, dampening expectations and putting the conversation on labour productivity in reverse.” Rodwell argues this reflects how “Australia’s industrial relations environment fundamentally fails to support business investment and entrepreneurship.” For businesses, the legislation means continuing to navigate what the ARA describes as Australia’s complex award system rather than accessing simplified salary structures. The ARA says the retail award’s 994 pay rates create particular challenges for smaller operators, with “Australia’s largest retailers find it difficult to navigate” while “our smallest retailers find it near impossible to interpret.” The government’s preference for enterprise bargaining as an alternative creates additional costs and administrative burdens for small to medium businesses. As the ARA notes, enterprise bargaining “imposes additional costs, complexity and administrative pressures, further straining employers already navigating significant challenges in today’s economic climate.” Businesses in retail, clerical, and banking sectors that had applied to the Fair Work Commission for modernized pay arrangements will need to withdraw applications or face certain rejection under the new legislation. Strategic implications The penalty rate protection laws signal Labor’s ideological commitment to collective bargaining over individual workplace flexibility. This approach prioritizes union objectives and traditional award structures over business-led innovation in employment arrangements. For business leaders, the legislation represents a broader challenge: Australia’s industrial relations system is becoming less responsive to modern workplace needs while adding regulatory complexity. The government’s intervention in Fair Work Commission independence also raises questions about the predictability of future workplace relations policy. The laws are expected to pass easily with Greens support, meaning businesses should prepare for continued complexity in award-based employment arrangements while exploring enterprise bargaining options despite their additional costs and administrative requirements. The ARA argues this reflects a broader challenge where “Australia’s industrial relations environment fundamentally fails to support business investment and entrepreneurship,” warning that “improvements in living standards will be elusive if we don’t face into this problem.” Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Read More

New research shows Australia falling behind in AI race with weak strategies and talent shortfalls threatening national productivity ambitions and workforce security. Australia is losing ground in the global AI race, with new research revealing the nation’s artificial intelligence readiness has declined significantly over the past year despite widespread recognition of AI’s transformative potential. ServiceNow’s AI Maturity Index shows Australia’s AI readiness score has dropped to 36 out of 100, falling 10 points as organizations struggle with poor planning, skills shortages, and strategic misalignment. Only 10% of Australian enterprises feel ready to reorganize or innovate their businesses with AI, creating a dangerous gap between ambition and execution. Strategic disconnect creates workforce anxiety The research exposes a troubling disconnect in Australian boardrooms. While nearly 82% of organizations plan to increase AI investments in the next fiscal year, fundamental preparation remains inadequate. Only 33% have developed a clear AI vision for their business, 37% possess the right skills mix and talent to execute their strategy, and just 43% have formalized data governance structures. This strategic confusion is creating significant workforce anxiety. The research found six in 10 Australians fear losing their jobs to generative AI – the highest rate reported globally. Meanwhile, 71% of business leaders haven’t mapped the skills they’ll need to operationalize an AI strategy, with almost two-thirds lacking the resources and talent to execute their AI plans. “Our nation is at a tipping point and without immediate action, weak AI strategies and talent shortfalls could derail Australia’s productivity ambitions,” says Danielle Magnusson, ServiceNow’s Employee Experience Director for APAC. “But for those with strong leadership, an enterprise-wide AI platform, and an upskilling agenda, AI offers a clear path to smarter, faster, more resilient business.” Automation timeline pressures The urgency becomes clearer when considering the timeline. The research reveals 670,000 Australian roles are set to be automated by 2030, giving organizations just five years to deploy effective AI strategies that protect workforce job security while capturing productivity benefits. Australia’s tech workforce is expected to grow by only 37% over this period, adding approximately 150,000 new technology roles – significantly below the Tech Council’s goal of 1.2 million roles by 2030. This contrasts sharply with India, where the tech workforce is projected to grow 95% in the same timeframe, driven by substantial domestic digital transformation and talent availability. The skills gap comes at a critical time when the government expects AI to deliver a tech-driven productivity boost over the next three years. The Productivity Commission is already working on reforms to build public confidence in AI and close talent gaps, but the disconnect between national ambition and business execution continues to widen. Success stories provide blueprint Some Australian organizations are demonstrating how strategic AI deployment can work. Mining services firm Orica, which employs over 12,000 people globally, has prioritized decisive AI strategies with phased rollouts to support its workforce. The company deployed ServiceNow’s AI-powered Virtual Agent across 35 use cases, transforming both speed and quality of IT services. “Our deflection rate has gone from 18% to 94%, which is just a massive increase,” said Bradley Hunt, Manager of DevOps and Regional Apps at Orica. “We are speeding up the average resolution time by more than a day, freeing up our team to do more strategic tasks.” The path forward The research highlights that executives are currently straddling dangerous middle ground – accelerating AI spending without clear planning and metrics, putting both profit margins and workforce security at risk. With breakthrough technologies like agentic AI advancing rapidly, businesses are struggling to keep pace with the technological evolution. For Australia to realize its AI potential and meet productivity targets, leaders across every industry must act decisively on two fronts: developing comprehensive AI strategies that include workforce planning and investing in the platforms and people necessary to execute those strategies effectively. The window for catching up in the global AI race is narrowing, but organizations with strong leadership, enterprise-wide AI platforms, and committed upskilling agendas still have the opportunity to transform their operations and secure their competitive position. More here. Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Read More