Happy hump day, Flux fam!

Here's everything you need to know today - in under 3 minutes.

Today's big stories:

✅NAB eyes off 1-day mortgage approvals

🥩Plant-based meat producers could be headed for an identity crisis

📱SenseTime bounces back from US blacklist with new IPO plans

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Slow and steady DOES NOT win the race, NAB and ANZ find

Background: Like many of the big four banks in 2021, NAB have had a bit of a scandalous year. We had reports of staff working unpaid overtime, an investigation into anti-money laundering failures...

What happened: Now, NAB's dropped a little Christmas present for shareholders: they're aiming to approve home loan applications in as little as one hour.

What else: It's all part of the plans to take back market share from new upstarts in town.

So what's the key learning?

💡When it comes to a home loan, there are a few critical aspects to consider:

• interest rates
• home loan features and benefits...
• and turnaround time to get approved.

💡The turnaround time has become key to winning more customers and market share. In the past, banks like ANZ have taken around 32 days to approve a complex mortgage...which means your dream property could be sold before you're even approved.

💡So, traditional lenders are now trying to become more efficient to take back that market share.

Meat industry has major beef with plant-based foodies telling porkies

Background: Plant-based dairy and meat alternatives reached sales of US$30 billion in 2020...and that number is expected to increase to US$162 billion by 2030.

What happened: But one thing could slow the market: branding. Currently, there's a senate inquiry into whether plant-based food producers should be able to use words associated with animals on their packaging (i.e. 'beef' or 'sausage').

What else: The meat industry reckons plant-based manufacturers shouldn't be allowed to piggyback off their branding.

So what's the key learning?

💡Piggyback branding is when a company launches a brand that's designed to feel similar to a known, successful brand (or theme). Sometimes it can be positive (like leveraging a new trend) but other times, it can mislead people into making a purchase.

💡Piggybacking isn't unique to Australian plant-based manufacturers. In fact, in the US, dairy farmers have been battling plant-based milk companies over their use of the word 'milk' when almonds, ya know, don't lactate.

💡While piggybacking can be a dangerous game, there is a fine line between taking a stand...and protectionism.

Chinese AI company Senses its Time to revisit its IPO after US blacklist

Background: SenseTime is a Chinese artificial intelligence startup founded back in 2014 in Hong Kong. It creates technologies like facial recognition, image recognition and even autonomous driving.

What happened: This crew planned to raise around $1 billion via an IPO in Hong Kong, and were set to start trading earlier this month. But, the US government put the company on a blacklist - alleging its tech enables human rights abuses against minorities in China.

What else: The blacklist meant US investors were banned from investing in SenseTime, so the company delayed their IPO plans. Now, they're going for round 2, after already securing a large chunk of the capital raise from cornerstone investors. ‍

So what's the key learning?

💡A cornerstone investor is a type of investor that commits to participating in an IPO... in advance of the IPO.

💡There are a few reasons why companies take on cornerstone investors:

1. Having names already committed to the IPO raises the profile of the IPO and incites major FOMO
2. By guaranteeing that a portion of the shares will be sold, investment banks have less to sell on the actual IPO date.

💡Cornerstone investors are becoming increasingly common in Asian IPOs. This may be why SenseTime chose to bring in the big guns early.