Banking on IT

Super Rewards can help bridge Australia's gender ‘Super Gap’

We’ve all heard of the gender pay gap, but what about the ‘Super Gap’ where women have significantly lower balances of Superannuation at retirement than men?

Super Rewards wants to help fix this – in this interview we discuss how Super Rewards links e-commerce (instant rewards) with Superannuation (long term rewards).

Super Rewards is an elegant solution to help fix a long standing and complex problem.

PLUS: listen to the end of the podcast with a special offer from Pascale and Super Rewards!

We are delighted to welcome Pascale Helyar-Moray to the podcast: Pascale has 25 years financial services marketing and brand-building experience. A seasoned entrepreneur, she is CEO & Founder of Super-Rewards, a platform where you earn cash back in your super from your everyday spend, both instore and online. 

Previously Pascale held senior marketing roles for JPMorgan Asset Management, BT Financial Group and BNP Paribas. Her recent advisory experience includes ResMed Ventures, Investment NSW, and the Australian Gender Equality Council. 

In this podcast, we discuss:

Pascale’s background?

What problem is Super Rewards solving for?

What are you trying to achieve short term? Versus long term? 

Superannuation has an ‘image’ problem. What is one thing you would do to fix it?

How important are partners? (CAR/AFSL, technology partner)

What have been your key learnings as you’ve dealt with the super funds?

Government: surely they would love Super-Rewards? It’s helping Australians have more in their retirement pot and taking the load off them in future.

What metrics are important? How do you measure results/growth

Vision for the future and role of Government. 

CDR opens the gate to the Super App for Australia, says Ashurst

Interview with Geoff McGrath, Partner, Ashurst 

Geoff is a Partner in the digital economy transactions team at Ashurst, with a focus on data, privacy, as well as information technology and telecommunications. Keen supporter of startups, with an interest in the tech sector, energy transition, intellectual property, early stage investment and venture capital.

https://www.ashurst.com/en/people/geoff-mcgrath/ 

In this interview, we discuss:

What does Consumer data Right mean?

The history of CDR – 2017 Open Banking Review & Productivity Commission Review (looked at entire economy, from banking to telco to energy); the real benefits – data and information has value, and can be used by incumbent organisations, this is now changing with CDR/Open Banking

Product level data vs transaction data, in a standardised way

Explanation of terms; data holders, accredited data recipients, 

What Government bodies are involved? ACCC (accreditor and enforcer)

CDR came out of concern around concentration of players, as well as data sovereignty; the concept that you own your data.

Are we now starting to see the benefit of CDR? Open banking, open energy, open telco etc – so the CDR opens up data between new sectors, new products.

CDR changes over time: from start to action initiation.

Who owns the customer? The bank? The accredited data recipient? 

Geoff discusses how the CDR legislation opens the gate to the Super App

Why has the roll out of CDR slowed? What will this mean?

Opportunities for future products?

Use of Ai to enable consumers to set up goals and use big data plus Ai to deliver the possibly of tailored financial advice.

How will data aggregation (aka screen scrapping) evolve? Will they be phased out and when?

How does cyber security impact CDR and perception of data safety

The role of digital identity; role of public vs private sector

Where should CDR be in a year’s time? Why has progress been paused? Issue of data quality, scams etc. Super App maybe the ‘killer app’ but it may not be ready in 12 months.

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 35: Sofie de Vreese, GM APAC, Expensify

Expensify creates payments and expenses ‘Super app’ with Freemium pricing model

 To use Expensify’s own words; “We make expense reports that don't suck - get the app and play around for yourself”

Expensify is a payments superapp that helps individuals and businesses around the world simplify the way they manage money. More than 10 million people use Expensify's free features, which include corporate cards, expense tracking, next-day reimbursement, invoicing, bill pay, and travel booking in one app. All free. Whether you own a small business, manage a team, or close the books for your clients, Expensify makes it easy so you have more time to focus on what really matters.

Helping to spread Expensify's innovations in Expense Management across the APAC region and beyond, Sofie is a highly motivated, energetic and driven individual, with a great track record in working with cross functional teams and large client groups. Her expertise in marketing, sales and customer management has helped her consistently meet and exceed the challenges of rolling out and growing Expensify in the Asia Pacific region. Sofie has a natural passion for travel, people, different cultures including languages and am fluent in English, Dutch and French.

Thank you to our sponsors and supporters:

https://www.yodlee.com/au 

https://australianfintech.com.au/ 

https://www.terrapinn.com/exhibition/accounting-business-expo/index.stm 

Downsizer is a digital home-buying experience unlike any other! With Downsizer, anyone with sufficient equity in their current home can purchase a new dwelling with zero cash deposit. 

Downsizer has raised $3.75 million seed capital to accelerate the growth of its SaaS platform operating at the intersections of fintech, proptech and insurtech.

Downsizer is helping property developers, real estate agents, financial advisors, mortgage brokers and lenders, and insurance brokers and underwriters engage with Baby Boomers and Gen Xers over 50.  

The platform provides digital content and market insights for lead generation. It also has a national property marketplace where developers can list off-the-plan properties and access a real-time sales dashboard.

For older owner-occupiers – who may not pass a traditional credit assessment – a Deposit Power Downsizer Bond simplifies the home moving process so that downsizers don’t have to raid their savings or superannuation, or sell their home, to exchange contracts. The bond is also available to investors, including Self-Managed Superannuation Funds.  

Downsizer co-founder and managing director Mark Macduffie said the company aimed to help downsizers move so that they could “stop worrying and start living”.  
In this podcast, Mark discusses the product, the partners they work with, the target market, fundraising, building the team, and international expansion plans.

About Downsizer: https://www.downsizer.com/ 

About Mark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/macduffie/ 

Thank you to our supporters:

Envestnet Yodlee: https://www.yodlee.com/au

Australian FinTech: https://australianfintech.com.au/

Terrapinn and the Accounting Business Expo, March 2023: https://www.terrapinn.com/exhibition/accounting-business-expo/index.stm 

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 Morgan

Why the move to venture

Who are Astral Ventures? Track record, vision, mission

How Astral work with Founders and the early stage eco-system

Recent report – VC Leader board – grading the investors

Methodology: 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 Journey

www.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 Weel

Onboarded 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 sellers

Mastercard 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 here

Case study: MX51

Mastercard Global FinTech Accelerator program explained (Start Path, a 6 month intensive program)

Mastercard working on bridge between Web2 and Web3 for payments; will use stablecoins

Trends to watch: Kallan mentions ESG, 5G/embedded finance, lending/risk models, banks moving off legacy tech, cloud/partnering with fintech as trends to watch

Mastercard growing: 90+ open positions in Sydney

FinTechs 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 Society

Key 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 better

Bank branches are now ‘digital classrooms’ for customers

Open Banking will change the bank-customer relationship for the better

Data first approach for decision making

Merger provides scale, which allows bank to invest more in technology

Simon 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 FinTech

Giving 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 Cameron

Publish 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 banks

Cameron 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 Cameron

Going 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 months
oHelping people start investing and invest regularly
oThere are now 2 million micro-investors in Australia
oMicro-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 months
oCache 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 months
oGrowth in micro-investing
oThe entry of banks and other players into the market (to reflect the US and UK experience)