#stephen rowlison

Diamond Circle Suspends Operations Amid Cash Crisis

06 February 2015 | Yessi Bello Perez | Coindesk.com

Australian bitcoin hardware manufacturer Diamond Circle has suspended operations citing a lack of capital.

The company, which launched Australia’s first cashless ATM last year, is currently seeking a buyer for its wallet service, cloud hosted platform, NFC card technology, ATM network, hardware, bitcoin point-of-sale solution, data, trademarks and trade secrets, as well as the source code for all its platform components.

Speaking to CoinDesk, Stephen Rowlison, CEO at Diamond Circle, said that the decision had been taken based on a “lack of capital to continue system upkeep”.

Australian Manufacturer Debuts First Cashless Bitcoin ATM

By Jon Southurst, Coindesk.com

An Australian company says it has produced one of bitcoin’s holy grails: a cashless ATM that allows users to buy bitcoins using a credit card, and sell bitcoins via a direct deposit to their bank account.

The first fully functional Diamond Circle ATM arrived from its manufacturer in Brisbane this week. Unlike competing ATMs and vending machines that rely on QR codes and cash, Diamond Circle’s solution is based on near-field communication (NFC) technology with paper receipt backups.

This unique approach is the brainchild of CEO Stephen Rowlison, a seasoned FinTech (financial technology) entrepreneur with 30 years of IT experience in Australia, Asia and the US. Before founding Diamond Circle, Rowlison was working on various projects developing NFC payment and loyalty card systems for retailers. He said: