The FinTech Report

The FinTech Report Podcast: Joe Patrick at Astral Ventures Joe Patrick is the co-founder of Astral Ventures – a technology focussed corporate advisory firm based in Sydney, Australia. Astral has worked with some of Australia’s most exciting technology companies including Hivery, FrankieOne, ImmutableX, Spaceship and VC fund Blackbird Ventures, among many more. Astral Ventures is also the publisher of the ANZ VC Leaderboard which is a first of it’s kind initiative launched in February of this year. The VC Leaderboard enables founders to make more empowered decisions about whom to partner with - and for VCs to better understand how founders benchmark them against peers.Prior to founding Astral, Joe was an investment banker at JPMorgan. In this episode, we discuss:Joe’s finance background at JP MorganWhy the move to ventureWho are Astral Ventures? Track record, vision, missionHow Astral work with Founders and the early stage eco-systemRecent report – VC Leader board – grading the investorsMethodology: how do Founders ‘judge’ the investors?How can investors do better?Thoughts on the fintech funding eco-system: global macro trends, as well as local micro trends About Astral Ventures VC Leaderboard. 700 submissions from founders on 150 funds.With the data, Astral has created a founder NPS ranking tool - ranking the best VCs in the eyes of Australian and Kiwi founders. Astral decided to publish the top 25 funds, and have shown the remainder alphabetically. Astral’s intention is for founders to use this tool to make more empowered decisions about whom to partner with - and for VCs to better understand how founders benchmark them against peers.View the Astral Leaderboard report here: https://thelist.astralventures.com.au/ 

Trent McLaren, Founder, The Journeywww.letsjourney.com.au Trent’s just finished up a role with Weel (Previously DiviPay) as Head of Strategic Channels. Whilst Trent’s Officially hanging up the boots at Weel, his role there was an amazing roller coaster ride of growth and innovation and, like all startups, in a very short period of time.Trent worked with the co-founders as the team scaled from 15 to 55. Trent’s role in building partnerships to drive growth was and is key for Weel, and it’s a lesson that all startups need to understand. Trent was tasked with building and creating an accounting community that would help the business find new customers, increase brand awareness and create a team to help service the channel.A few key highlights from his time at WeelOnboarded over 600 accountants and bookkeepers into the Weel Partner Program (he had to build the program!)Over 1000 new clients were introduced to Weel through by their trusted advisor, through the Weel partner program.Trent Launched the new Weel brand at Xerocon as a platinum/event partner, where the team was described as everyone's new favourite app!This is a journey of rapid growth; and not everyone can achieve this type of growth – so we’ll explore that in this episode.In addition to being the Founder of Journey, a consultancy helping accounting tech platforms to grow and scale, Trent’s other new role is CEO of “From The Trenches” – which he describes as focused on "Real Life in Accounting", providing practical advice on things you need to know today in your role as an accountant or bookkeeper. From The Trenches is supported by a podcast, and online virtual accounting summits 

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 31; Kallan Hogan, Head of Business Development, Mastercard Australia & NZ  Key Points raised: Mastercard about connecting buyers and sellersMastercard is more than cards and payments; services also include: Digital ID, online fraud verification, biometrics technology, Ai that scores transactions for fraud, personalisation, loyalty etc Mastercard is a challenger, always looking to partner and create solutions; has global tech hub in Sydney/Australia, can do tech dev hereCase study: MX51Mastercard Global FinTech Accelerator program explained (Start Path, a 6 month intensive program)Mastercard working on bridge between Web2 and Web3 for payments; will use stablecoinsTrends to watch: Kallan mentions ESG, 5G/embedded finance, lending/risk models, banks moving off legacy tech, cloud/partnering with fintech as trends to watchMastercard growing: 90+ open positions in SydneyFinTechs can get in touch with Kalan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kallanhogan/Kallan Hogan is the Head of Business Development for Mastercard Australia and NZ. In this role, he leads a team focused on making the connection between buyers and sellers more efficient in an ever-changing digital world.  He is responsible for creating client-led solutions across Mastercard technology including tokenisation, loyalty solutions, cybersecurity, open banking, personalisation, marketing, data analytics and other services. Prior to joining Mastercard, Kallan held multiple leadership roles at American Express and has experience driving brands across diverse regions having worked in Sydney, London, Singapore and Chicago. Mastercard has evolved from a payments company to an innovative technology and services provider focused on broader payment opportunities in the retail, technology, government and finance industries. In Australia, Mastercard is committed to enabling all stakeholders - issuers, acquirers, merchants and consumers - with the latest technology and services to connect and protect, safely and seamlessly. As one of the world’s leading payment network operators, Mastercard is widely known and trusted. Today, the company is enthusiastically harnessing the digital revolution as it seeks to accelerate innovations beyond payments using new technologies and capabilities. FinTechs can get in touch with Kalan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kallanhogan/ 

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 30; Simon Burt, Head of Digital Customer Experience and Innovation, Newcastle Permanent Building SocietyKey Points:NPBS future is about Partnerships NPBS not trying to be a digital only bank, but wants to partner with fintechs to stay competitive and serve customers betterBank branches are now ‘digital classrooms’ for customersOpen Banking will change the bank-customer relationship for the betterData first approach for decision makingMerger provides scale, which allows bank to invest more in technologySimon Burt is Head of Digital Customer Experience and Innovation at Newcastle Permanent Building Society, a role he’s had for over 5 years. Simon has been with NPBS for over 15 and has worked across both branch banking as well as home loans. Prior to his 15 years with NPBS, he spent 10 years with American Express on the FX part of the business. NPBS provide financial services, including accounts, home and personal loans, debit and credit cards, and insurance, but are not a bank. They are a mutual building society; NPBS is owned by the customers, not by shareholders.Newcastle Permanent was established in 1903. They are regulated by the Banking Act 1959 (Cth), and supervised by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). Their motto is: ‘Here for Good’.In November 2022, Newcastle Permanent and Greater Bank agreed to a merger. The merged organisation will have more than $20 billion in total assets and 600,000 customers, and benefit from almost 200 years of combined operating history.The new merged entity, will be called: Newcastle Greater Mutual Group Ltd In this interview we cover:Simon’s role at NGMG?Why NGMG?What is NGMG’s interest in fintech? What pain point do you solve for fintechs?Who are your potential customers? What is your ‘sweet spot’?How do you asses risk when dealing with fintechs? Expansion plans?Open Banking – benefit to fintechs & banks? Simon always keen to meet with fintechs looking to partner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonburt2300/  

The Fintech Report Podcast: Episode 29; Cameron Dart, CEO & Founder, Australian FinTechGiving fintechs a voice is our key mission, says Dart Vision is to cover all major fintech markets Separate newsletters launched for PropTech and Blockchain FinTech India to launch in 2023 Cameron explains his background and what led him to start Australian FinTech; finance career kicked off with a merchant bank in London; then moved to Morgan Stanley in Sydney; then property development in Australia/Gold Coast.Started kids website (ebay for kids products); almost killed by arrival of GumTree and Facebook Marketplace – lots of lessons learnt on technology, disruption, timing etc – taught Cameron the risks involved in technology sector.Started next project with business partner who started Australia’s first online life insurance business.Huge interest in fintech, so started Australian FinTech – newsfeed, directory of companies; started with 60, now grown to over 1000 members. Cameron says there are 1400 fintechs in Australia. Now seven years old; keeps growing as industry grows.Daily newsletter covers all fintech; covers news on small startups to ASX/NASDAQ listed fintechs. “Give a voice to fintech companies,” is the key mission says CameronPublish approx. 1200 articles per year – 40,000 social media followers (30k on LinkedIn). Tuesday and Thursday newsletter goes to 5000 subscribers.Members get priority regarding news with links back to member websites. Audience has changed over time; also, Cameron also experienced how audience value news.Most disappointing aspect of fintech: failure of Xinja and Volt.Most promising aspect of fintechs; fintechs partnering to take on the big banksCameron discusses global expansion plans: tried ‘international fintech’ but it didn’t work – so Cameron built country specific websites for FinTech USA, UK and Ireland. “People only care about what’s in their backyard”Cameron just launched FinTech UAE: will add many more in the years ahead – especially India for 2023. Cameron surprised by how deep/big the Aussie fintech market is vs UK, USA etc (even given population numbers)“Australian FinTech is the stage on which Aussie fintechs can ‘go global’” says CameronGoing global also means Cameron can partner with various fintech events in markets like FinTech Week in UK.Cameron says he’d like to see the neo-banks grow and prosper; big banks have had a monopoly for so long, it needs to change. Cameron launched a Blockchain and Crypto site, as well as a PropTech news website 

Our Guest today is Caleb Gibbins, Founder of Cache Invest  – Cache provide Investing as-a-Service so that any company can be a Fintech company.You can integrate Cache’s fully digital investment products directly into your existing app, website or other platform through their APIs. Caleb discusses the following on this episode of The FinTech Report Podcast•Developments in micro-investing over the last 12 monthsoHelping people start investing and invest regularlyoThere are now 2 million micro-investors in AustraliaoMicro-investors don’t stop investing during a downturn – Cache data shows 19 investments for each withdrawal (95% of transactions are inflows)•Developments at Cache  over the last 12 monthsoCache supports 77% of micro-investing portfolio products in the market (10 / 13)oFintech Award – Innovation in Wealth Management.  Received because Cache enables other companies to offer branded investment products to their customers•Looking forward to the next 12 monthsoGrowth in micro-investingoThe entry of banks and other players into the market (to reflect the US and UK experience)

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 26: Santiago Burridge - CEO & Co-Founder at Lumiant About SantiagoSantiago “Santi” Burridge founded Lumiant in 2020 to support financial Advisers in delivering on the promise of advice by creating a software-supported advice experience.According to Santiago, Financial Advice needs to expand beyond investments and into every facet of a client’s financial life. With Advisers understanding what truly drives their clients.About LumiantLumiant is a cloud-based advice and client engagement platform, where clients and their advisors connect around their lives, values and finances. Lumiant’s goal is to remove key person dependency by creating a memorable, measurable, and repeatable process that anyone can deliver. We’ll take a deep dive into what this means and how it’s delivered.Please note that this discussion is not financial advice and you should seek professional advice that suits your individual investment needs. Key points in this interview: ●       Santi wants to support the industry in transitioning away from product led to advice led, which is largely driven through a values-based or life-centric advice process●       There was very little technology on the market to support advisors in this transition - there are platforms, CRMs and tools that help put clients in portfolios or products but nothing to cater for the wants and needs of clients throughout their entire lives.●       According to Santi, financial advisors have incredible conversations that essentially get butchered and turned into 80 page SOAs, risk profiles and performance reports which mean very little to clients - it’s like handing them an MRI scan and expecting them to understand what they are looking at with no professional training or experience.●       So Santi wanted to create a platform that would bring advisors’ superpowers to life - their ability to connect deeply with their clients and understand everything there is to know about their lives and their families. Santi wants to turn the qualitative, extraordinary unstructured conversations into structured, quantifiable and measurable dashboard that brings to life what’s important to a client and their family. With this information, Lumiant can better define a financial plan that will help clients to live their best life●       Lumiant is comprised of several modules to help with client discovery, trade-off conversations, keeping clients on track and accountable, and bring to life the intangible value of advice. Modules include:○        Your Life - our short assessment that acts as a lead gen tool that gets clients to inform you what areas of their lives are most important to them - based on the 8 Dimensions of Wellbeing○        Your Values - our deep discovery values-based advice process that gets to the heart of what clients truly care about○        Your Goals - our SMART goal tracker that lets clients inform their advisor on what they want to achieve to live a life aligned to their values○        Your Wealth - connects with investment and open banking providers to provide the overall net worth of a household in one place○        Your Best Life - Lumiant’s multi-goal optimization engine, with Monte Carlo simulations, enables you and your clients to scenario plan and model their best life. Clients can immediately see if they’re on track, underfunded, or overfunded helping them to make better, more informed life decisions●        Since Lumiant launched in Australia in February 2021 and the US in May 2022, Lumiant have over 150 advisors from almost 50 practices

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 25: Interview with Raaj Rayat, Investor, Airtree Ventures Raaj Rayat is an early stage venture investor with Airtree Ventures. Prior to Airtree, Raaj launched Lendable in Nariobi (Kenya), London and Sydney. Lendable is a FinTech that uses data science to expand fair access to financial services in emerging markets. Raaj Helped scale Lendable from $0 to $200m+ invested across 10+ countries in 4 yearsAirTree is a venture capital firm with a mission to back the most ambitious Australian and Kiwi founders, building the iconic technology companies of tomorrow. Airtree pride themselves on saying they are “right by a founder's side, right from the start, often investing pre-product and pre-revenue to support startups from the earliest stages of their journey” Airtree has a portfolio of 80+ companies, and has been an early investor in many breakout tech companies, including: Canva, Go1, A Cloud Guru, Pet Circle, Immutable, Employment Hero, and Linktree, and a number of other exciting fintechsIn this episode, Raaj and Glen discuss:What got Raaj into VCAirtree’s fintech investmentsRaaj’s thesis on fintechWhat excites you in fintech? (eg lending, proptech, insuretech, defi, digital assets etc)We are in a funding ‘winter’ – what impact is this having? (Valuations etc) what do you say to your founders?What do you like/want to invest in? (stage, size, sector etc) What do you look for? Founding team, idea, traction, customers, ability to scale etcAirTree web3 investmentsWhat’s your thesis on digital assets and digital currencies? (DeFi vs Trad Fi)Future of fintech - Thoughts on DeFi and Blockchain (digital assets etc)If you are an early stage FinTech (& web3, DeFi, wealth tech, PropTech etc) and want to contact Raaj, please use this email. Contact: Raaj Rayat: Email: raaj@airtree.vc 

KYC/CDD: Moody’s helps fintechs meet compliance at speed Our guest is Choon Hong Chua; Senior Director – Head of Financial Crime Practice, APAC & Middle East, Moody’s Analytics, where we discuss know-your-customer (KYC), covering how fintechs are performing customer due diligence (CDD), i.e. verifying the identity of a customer, whether an individual or business.Choon is the APAC and Middle East Head of subject matter expert team for Compliance Solutions in Moody’s Analytics. He is responsible for driving compliance related initiatives across Asia Pacific and Middle East. Choon is active in the compliance community in the public sectors, banking and corporate space and understands the emerging trends in combating financial crimes through these interactions. Choon leads a team of 8 specialists and practice leads providing consultancies and solutions in helping fortune 500 clients in understanding the risk-based approach to Anti-Money Laundering, and assist in data mapping workshops to operationalize the use of MA information through the AML processes. His experience helps client in building a holistic compliance risk framework and solutions to navigate through complex regulatory environments.Choon comes with over 15 years of experience in the enterprise software solution space and he has spent the last few years advising major financial institutions across Asia Pacific in AML, fraud and trade compliance. He is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and he is a current member of the Association of Fraud Examiners. He participates actively in leading financial crime conferences across Asia Pacific.About Moody’s: Moody’s Analytics enables banks and fintechs to Make Better, Faster Compliance Decisions, to Identify Risks, and to Prevent Financial Crime. Moody’s Analytics provide best-in-class tools and data, empowering you to understand the risks associated with your customers, suppliers, and extended networkTheir services enable you to understand the potential for a wide range of important issues; from trade-based money laundering, asset confiscation & recovery, negative news screening for risk management, and many moreIn this interview, Choon discusses how Moody’s offers help to fintechs and banks:-          Moody’s helps organisation mitigate the risk when it comes to regulatory compliance-          Regardless of the size of the organisation, Moody’s helps to look at how to improve the process of understanding your clients and assessing the risk of doing business with them.-          The idea is to help you make the journey as smooth as possible, at the same time comply to the regulatory requirements. Who are your customers?-          Moody’s work with large and small organisation alike. Moody’s has solutions ready made for fintechs and corporates where we try not to over complicate the whole implementation process.Journey to date-          Moody’s has seen the digital transformation across APAC and are embarking on that same journey with many of the new start-ups taking the lessons we learnt from the much more established bigger enterprise.Trends in the sector you want to discuss?-          Regulatory demands increasing….-          Client demands for faster and easier access to financial systems and market-          Balance between privacy and security-          Operational viability in a risk-based approach. Contact: Choon Hong ChuaSenior Director – Head of Financial Crime Practice, APAC & Middle EastChoonhong.chua@moodys.com 

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 24: Interview with Jaco Veldsman, Co-Founder, PaytronWe started with payments and accounting, customers then asked us for corporate cards and FX, and Open Banking for Business will be a game changer, says Paytron Paytron is a cloud-based payments platform built for SMEs and accountants.  In 2020, Jaco Veldsman met co-founder Francois Henrion, where they lamented the disparity of finance tools available to SMEs and accountants versus bigger businesses.  Together they focused on developing Paytron, an all-in-one payment platform that removed the manual work for SMEs and accountants covering accounts payable, accounts receivable, cashflow management, FX, and payroll and employee expenses. In this episode we cover:·       Accounting packages haven’t innovated, Paytron saw the opportunity·       Focus is on SMEs, small business up to $100m turnover·       Paytron’s philosophy was to launch fast, and innovate fast·       Laser focus on what the customer wants; out of this came the request for corporate cards·       Partnership with JP Morgan is huge·       FinTech & Banks are a perfect partnership and each brings their own skills and advantages·       Next major problem is business banking, business financing needs, which can include corporate cards·       Business banking needs to change, and Paytron will be moving hard and fast in this sector·       Expansion plans to English speaking Commonwealth countries; NZ, Singapore, South Africa, Canada, UK. The JP Morgan partnership opens up other countries, eg USA·       Great benefits of being in the Commonwealth; same language and very similar regulations, taxes etc·       Paytron will expand into FX (foreign exchange)·       Jaco explains the role of corporate cards·       Jaco explains their amazing funding journey (US VCs as well as Australia), and building the team·       Open Banking is huge and will be big; banks need to ‘choose a side’ says Jaco·       FinTechs can access bank accounts (via Open Banking) and offer new services: when fintechs can have “read and write” access, then fintechs will offer services as well as payments Qy2Pt8Aij9VtVpZbbxU1