News In Brief

Welcome to our ‘News In Brief’ column in which we digest all the news releases for you in no more than five paragraphs.
Below are snippets of all the media releases we received from Sept 14 till the end of the week.
This article updates throughout the week.

Online Card Spending Tops $500bn

Perth, Sept 14: Mobile wallets have driven Australia’s online and remote card spending past $500 billion for the first time, reaching $500.3 billion in the year to July 2026, according to new research from Temple & Webster using RBA Retail Payments Statistics. Mobile wallets accounted for roughly three-quarters, 75.7%, of that growth.
The $500.3 billion figure now makes up 46.6% of all Australian card spending, in-store and online combined ($1,073.5 billion over the same 12 months), up from 45.5% when the RBA’s first full 12-month reading was taken in September 2025, with online and remote spending closing in on half of everything Australians put on a card.
Credit card users led the shift to mobile wallets online, spending $69.4 billion that way over the past year, well ahead of debit’s $39.1 billion. Debit is closing the gap fast, however, with online debit mobile wallet payments rising 59.4% year-on-year in July, against 30.2% for credit, while typed-in or saved-number card payments stayed close to flat for both.
Mobile is also gaining ground within online spending itself, not just spreading across more of it. Its share of online and remote spending climbed from 17.3% to 21.7% over the past year on the 12-month measure, or from 18.0% to 23.3% comparing July directly with a year earlier, meaning close to a quarter of every dollar Australians spend online now goes through a phone rather than a typed-in card number.
Some categories are further along than others. RBA survey data puts bill payments at 82% online, up from 78% in 2022, the most advanced of any category, while furniture and other household goods sit at just 30% online, up from 26%, still mostly bought in person but moving in the same direction, according to Temple & Webster CFO Cameron Barnsley.

How Ancient Fish Crushed Prey

Perth, Sept 14: Flinders University researchers have discovered that placoderms, the first vertebrates to evolve jaws and teeth more than 400 million years ago, developed two distinct biting strategies to catch prey on an ancient reef that once covered what is now northern Western Australia.
The study, published in Scientific Reports, used finite element analysis and 3D digital bite simulations to reconstruct how eight species fed in oceans 385 million years ago.
“Placoderms experimented with an extraordinary range of jaw shapes and biting parts during the early evolution of vertebrates,” said Dr Alice Clement, ARC Future Fellow at the Flinders Palaeontology Lab, who supervised the study. The smaller species relied on broad, flat crushing plates to pulverise prey whole, while larger species evolved weapon-like teeth to pierce and break apart shelled, armoured prey too large to swallow.
Researchers found that both the smallest and largest placoderms possessed the strongest jaws for hard bites, despite using entirely different tools — a result that surprised the team, according to Dr Rex Mitchell, first author of the study. The largest species featured teeth arranged along a raised bony crest resembling medieval war hammers and poleaxes, suggesting they punctured prey armour before breaking it apart.
The findings, drawn from decades of research at WA’s Gogo Formation, add to a growing understanding of placoderms’ role in vertebrate evolution. “Since 2013, placoderms have been directly linked to our evolution, as the start of the line leading from fishes to humans,” said Flinders Emeritus Professor John Long, a co-author on the study.

Emirates Enters Winter With Momentum

Perth, Sept 14: Emirates has closed the summer season ahead of expectations and enters winter with strong booking momentum across a broadening range of markets, as the airline continues to invest in its fleet, network and products. Between July and August, the airline carried more than 8.6 million passengers, operating at around 93% of its pre-disruption capacity, with more than half a million customers arriving in Dubai on Emirates flights in late August alone, up 7% on the same period last year.
Bookings for the winter season, beginning in late October, are tracking positively, with demand ahead of last year in markets including South Africa, Brazil, India, Portugal, Egypt, Ghana, Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, alongside Nepal through Emirates’ partnership with flydubai. Services to and from West Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Africa all recorded seat load factors above 75% over summer, with particularly strong performance on routes to Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire and the UK, while demand for Premium Economy grew across the network, led by the Americas.
Since January 2026, Emirates has welcomed 18 new aircraft, including 11 A350s and seven Boeing 777 freighters, with six more A350s due before year-end. To date, 104 aircraft have completed the airline’s retrofit programme, bringing the number offering Premium Economy and its latest cabin products to 137, rising to 155 by December. This year also saw the launch of the industry’s first U-dream headrest for Economy and Premium Economy seats with privacy dividers, alongside new-generation Emirates Lounges already open in Munich, Frankfurt and Manchester.
Emirates’ network continues to expand into winter, with Helsinki joining on 1 October via the A350, increasing the aircraft’s destination count from 30 to 36 by year-end. Accra, Tokyo Narita, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi will receive second daily services, one daily Delhi service will be upgraded to an A380, and the A350 will be deployed to Larnaca, Malta, Nairobi, Hamburg and Mauritius over the coming months. Beyond its own network, Emirates’ 168 codeshare, interline and intermodal partnerships provide access to a further 1,750 cities, while its partnership with flydubai has carried more than 28 million passengers since 2017.

Block Earner, Century 21 Home Loans partner on Bitcoin-backed deposits

Perth, Sept 17: Block Earner has partnered with Century 21 Home Loans to let Australians use Bitcoin as security for a property deposit while taking out a standard home loan through a traditional lender. It’s the first time a real estate group has formally backed a crypto-secured home loan product in the country, giving Bitcoin holders a structured route into property finance without selling their holdings. The move follows Block Earner’s recent Australian Credit Licence from ASIC, which lets it offer Bitcoin-backed lending directly.
Under the arrangement, the mortgage itself is funded and serviced by an established lender with no digital-asset exposure, while Block Earner provides a separate Bitcoin-backed deposit loan. Block Earner co-founder and CEO Charlie Karaboga said: “This partnership reflects a practical evolution in how digital assets can be incorporated into mainstream finance, supported by regulated lending practices, conservative credit settings and active monitoring to manage volatility responsibly.”
The loan is capped at an initial 50% loan-to-value ratio, with real-time monitoring and borrower alerts if thresholds are approached; borrowers can top up with more Bitcoin or cash if the ratio rises, with a 30-day cure period before default. Block Earner said none of its existing borrowers faced loan insolvency during the recent Bitcoin market correction, and its pilot Bitcoin-backed home loan has drawn more than A$550 million in waitlist demand.
Century 21 Home Loans Senior Credit and Policy Adviser Sam Panebianco said: “Century 21 Home Loans participating in the next frontier of banking and Bitcoin is an exciting development… With one in four Australians owning Bitcoin or crypto, this is a fast-growing space and one we want to make sure is done right.”
Australia’s crypto market is estimated at A$91.43 billion in 2025, with around 3.9 million Australians holding crypto as of 2024 and Bitcoin accounting for more than half of those holdings.

Smart Communications Reports Record H1 Bookings Growth

Perth, Sept 17: Smart Communications, a customer engagement technology provider for regulated industries, has posted its strongest-ever first-half bookings performance, with bookings up 17% year over year. The London-based company said the growth reflects rising investment by organisations looking to modernise customer interactions amid increasing regulatory and operational complexity, alongside strong gross revenue retention.
The company attributed the momentum to enterprises shifting from traditional communications management toward platforms that connect, govern and optimise interactions across the full customer journey, a trend it says is being accelerated by AI adoption and the resulting need for stronger governance and oversight.
Smart Communications also picked up multiple industry accolades in 2026, being named a leader in reports from QKS Group, Aragon Research and Omdia covering digital communications governance, workflow automation and customer communications management, as well as across four Aspire Leaderboard grids.
The company launched a global Customer Advisory Board this year with senior executives from organisations including Lloyds Banking Group, Blue Shield of California, Vodafone Three, Northern Trust and New York Life. It also strengthened its leadership team, appointing Rachel Elias-Jones as Chief Financial Officer and Chris Manton-Jones as Chief Commercial and Revenue Officer to support its next phase of growth.

Adobe Elements 2027 Adds AI Editing Tools

Perth, Sept 17: Adobe has announced new updates for Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 2027, adding AI-powered tools aimed at speeding up photo and video editing and making it easier to locate specific memories in a growing library.
Photoshop Elements 2027 introduces Generative Expand and Generative Upscale to extend photo borders and sharpen lower-resolution images, along with a beta AI Assistant that offers step-by-step guidance based on plain-language descriptions of a desired outcome. The update also adds Creative Filters such as Embroidery, Oil Painting and Duotone with adjustable intensity and texture controls, plus an AI Tools Hub consolidating the app’s AI-powered features in one place.
Premiere Elements 2027 gains Generate Image and Generative Title Art, letting users create custom images and stylized title graphics from text prompts, along with built-in sample media, contextual toolbars that surface relevant tools based on described tasks, and editing indicators to flag effects, transitions and formatting issues.
The Elements Organizer has also been upgraded with an English-only beta Semantic Search tool for finding content via natural-language descriptions, enhanced duplicate detection, and a Share to Phone feature for transferring edited files from desktop to mobile via QR code.
Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 2027 are available now as a discounted bundle through Adobe.com, Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers.

Aussies Expect Payment Shift as Surcharges End

Perth, Sept 17: More than half of Australians (56%) expect the end of card surcharges to change how they pay, according to new YouGov data, with the ban set to take effect on October 1. The most common expected changes are being less likely to avoid a business over surcharges (22%), paying less attention to which payment method they use (20%), making more small purchases by card (18%), and spending more overall by card (11%). Still, 44% don’t expect any change to their behaviour, and most Australians don’t anticipate their card usage shifting either, with 64% expecting debit card use to stay the same and 47% expecting no change in credit card use.
Gen Z (65%) and Millennials (63%) are far more likely than older Australians to expect their behaviour to change. Both groups are the most likely to expect to spend more by card and make more small purchases, though Gen Z’s expected shifts lean toward choosing cards for rewards and being less likely to avoid surcharging businesses, while Millennials expect to pay less attention to payment method and carry less cash.
Seven in ten Australians (71%) expect to notice a difference at checkout once the ban takes effect. A third (33%) expect fewer unexpected extra charges, but consumers aren’t expecting costs to vanish entirely: 29% anticipate new or increased fees elsewhere, and 26% expect higher advertised prices.
Fumin Rianto, Research Director at YouGov Australia, said: “Our data suggests the removal of card surcharges could affect how Australians approach everyday payments, with some consumers expecting to make more small purchases by card and spend more overall. These expected changes are particularly pronounced among younger Australians, suggesting the change could affect not only how people pay, but how they shop.”
The findings are based on responses from 1,063 Australian adults, collected between September 10 and 14, 2026.

HiBob Launches AI-Powered Workforce Intelligence

Perth, Sept 17: HiBob and The Josh Bersin Company have launched Galileo-powered AI agents in Bob, HiBob’s people platform, aiming to embed HR expertise directly into managers’ daily workflows rather than offering a standalone AI tool. The integration combines Josh Bersin’s 25 years of HR research with Bob’s data on an organisation’s people, structures and priorities to provide context-aware guidance where workforce decisions are made.
HiBob CEO and co-founder Ronni Zehavi said the initiative addresses what he called an intelligence problem rather than an AI problem, arguing that organisations need help turning existing information into better decisions across people, payroll, performance and planning.
The initial agents will support three areas: job architecture, using industry-aligned frameworks to structure roles and skills; compensation, guiding fair and data-informed pay decisions; and performance management, aimed at improving evaluation quality and consistency. HiBob expects the agents to be adopted by hundreds of customers by the end of 2026 and into the first quarter of 2027.
Josh Bersin, CEO of The Josh Bersin Company, said the partnership brings decades of HR knowledge directly to practitioners and managers in the flow of their work, while supporting more human-centred decision-making.

AI Now Common in Job Titles

Perth, Sept 17: Australian employers are increasingly writing “AI” into job titles across a widening range of roles, not just tech and data jobs, according to new analysis from Indeed. The number of normalised job titles mentioning AI has more than tripled over the past year, rising to 71 in the March quarter of 2026 — around 1.6% of all job titles — up from single digits just two years ago.
While AI-related hiring remains concentrated in tech, its share has been declining, falling from 75% between 2022 and 2024 to 61% in the March quarter of 2026. Newly AI-labelled roles are increasingly appearing in sales, management and education, signalling that AI-related skills are becoming more mainstream across the labour market.
Australia’s non-tech share of AI job titles, at 39%, remains well below other Indeed markets, including the United States (63%), Germany (59%), the Netherlands (58%), and the UK and France (54% each). Indeed said this reflects a job market where AI-related hiring is still concentrated in software development and data and analytics roles, even as Australian job postings show a comparatively high rate of AI mentions within job descriptions more broadly.
Indeed said many roles now carrying AI in their titles are long-established jobs being redefined rather than newly created positions, suggesting AI is reshaping existing roles as much as generating new ones. For jobseekers, the analysis suggests that familiarity with AI tools is becoming an increasingly explicit expectation across a broader range of occupations, not just technical ones.