Fintech Chatter: Conversations with Fintech Leaders

Stockspot has received a $28m strategic investment from Mirae Asset. 

Mirae Asset is a global asset manager with more than USD $548 billion in assets under management around the world. The investment will allow Stockspot to further enhance technology and service for clients. 

Chris Brycki joins Dexter Cousins to talk about the raise and how his long term approach to building a business has paid off. Applying the same principles to his business as he does to investment portfolios, Chris has managed to build a highly respected business in ten years.

Chris is one of the best content marketers out there and he shares his practical tips to grow revenue and find investors during an economic downturn.

You can find out more https://www.stockspot.com.au/

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Mark Macduffie joins Dexter Cousins on Fintech Chatter to discuss Downsizer, a platform that helps homeowners with enough equity in their current house buy their next house with zero cash deposit.

"If we can free up 1.7 million households, that has a cooling effect all the way down through the housing market." - Mark McDuffie

Downsizer solves the problem of housing affordability by qualifying downsizers using their proprietary technology to prove that they have sufficient equity to buy their next house. The platform aims to simplify the process for downsizers and help free up 1.7 million households in Australia.

Key Takeaways:

• Downsizer helps homeowners with enough equity in their current house buy their next house with zero cash deposit.
• The platform solves the problem of housing affordability by qualifying downsizers using their proprietary technology.
• Downsizer aims to free up 1.7 million households in Australia and have a cooling effect on the housing market.
• The platform uses a blend of digital technology and a financial instrument to simplify the process for downsizers.
• Downsizer is in pilot phase with mortgage brokers and is partnering with real estate agents to handhold downsizers through the process.

About Mark Macduffie

Mark Macduffie is the co-founder of Downsizer, a unique blend of digital technology and a financial instrument that helps homeowners with enough equity in their current house buy their next house with zero cash deposit. 

Mark brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the Downsizer team.  A digital, data and innovation executive with 30+ years of experience delivering products and solutions in five countries across multiple business and financial sectors. 
 
Find out more: https://www.downsizer.com/ 

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Mark Macduffie from Downsizer is this weeks Fintech Chatter Founder Focus interview - available Friday 25th August

Show your support for Australia's Fintech entrepreneurs and follow us on your favourite podcast player!

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Listen to the full interview -  https://www.buzzsprout.com/703249/13395585

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Listen to the full episode - https://www.buzzsprout.com/703249/13395585

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Ben Webster, founder of Agile Underwriting Services, joins Dexter Cousins to discuss his journey as an entrepreneur in the insurtech space.

With a passion for developing innovative insurance platforms, Ben has successfully built and scaled multiple bootstrapped insurtech startups from the ground up, turning them into profitable businesses.

His extensive experience spans over 15 years, making him a true veteran in the industry. His deep understanding of the insurance landscape, combined with his technical expertise, enables him to drive transformative change and create meaningful value for both insurers and policyholders.

"The hardest problem is distribution. You can launch a product after 18 to 24 months of development, and then it's tumbleweeds." - Ben Webster

About AGILE Underwriting
Insurance brokers are being asked to do more with less with a range of tasks that drain time and eat profit.  With AGILE, brokers are discovering a more profitable way to sell insurance. AGILE Underwriting Services is a Lloyd’s cover holder and insurtech MGA specialising in Casualty, Construction, Cyber, Financial Lines, Retail Travel, Wholesale and more. Find out more - https://www.agileunderwriting.com/

About Todays show
We reflect on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ben's previous venture, Insured By Us, and the hard lessons he learned from that experience. Ben explains the success of the AGILE model focusing on niche insurance products and the benefits of having a diverse portfolio as he struggled to keep Insured By Us alive.
Ben also shares insights into the challenges of finding the right people, navigating distribution and dealing with regulation in the insurance space.

Some founder insights Ben shares in this episode:
- Agile's diverse portfolio has helped the business ride the wave of market fluctuations.
- The insurance industry is highly siloed, making it challenging to find people with expertise in specific niches who can be successful in a startup.
- Distribution is the most difficult aspect of launching an insurance product, and AGILE has developed strategies to validate products early on.
- Ben emphasises the importance of a growth mindset and the need for entrepreneurs to be comfortable with uncertainty and feeling uncomfortable.
​

"The writing was on the wall, and I knew that I was going to have to make redundancies. I wanted to do it as early as possible to make sure that people got a good payout." - Ben Webster

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Toby Norton Smith is the head of x15ventures, the venture arm of Commonwealth Bank. x15ventures builds, buys, and invests in ventures to help them scale.

In this episode of Fintech Chatter, Dexter interviews Toby Norton Smith of x15ventures. They discuss the xccelerate program, which is designed to help early-stage ventures explore the potential for partnership with CommBank.

This year's program focuses on climate tech and helping advance Australia's transition to net zero. Toby explains the benefits and challenges of partnering with a bank and sets realistic expectations for founders seeking partnerships.

Toby highlights some of the challenges they are looking to address including measurement, traceability, and other tools in the climate tech space. Toby shares the success of previous program participants and reiterates x15 ventures' commitment to supporting the fintech community in Australia.

Apply to this years xccelerate program
​
**Key Takeaways:**
- x15ventures is a venture scaler that helps fintech startups scale through access to the CommBank divisions and customer network.
- The xccelerate program is for earlier stage ventures exploring partnership opportunities with CommBank.
- Partnership with a bank comes with trade-offs, including increased regulatory scrutiny and a shift in mindset around risk management and compliance.
- Climate tech startups need investment and customers, and corporates, including banks, can help with both.
- x15ventures is committed to supporting the fintech community in Australia and has seen success with previous program participants.

"There's a tremendous amount of help corporates need if they're going to lean into the climate tech space with any authenticity." - Toby Norton Smith

"We're certainly invested for the long term. We've definitely got the backing of ComBank." - Toby Norton Smith

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Dexter welcomes renowned Author, Advisor and commentator on digital finance, David Birch back to Australia.

"The metaverse is going to be built with an identity layer and a value layer, making it a safer and more secure place to do business." - David Birch

David is on a tour down under and will be making appearances at Intersekt and a number of exclusive events (details below)

Tune in for what is a bookmark episode of Fintech Chatter, an episode where we say goodbye to Fintech and hello to the new world of Open Finance!

"Tokenization is going to be much bigger than Blockchain." - David Birch

David shares new research along with Victoria Richardson on the Metaverse (or Metaverses). In this fascinating discussion David explains a template for the future of Fintech, a world where Digital ID, Digital Wallets and tokenisation enable the world to exchange value in a safe, secure, fair and efficient way.

Thanks to PayEd https://payed.biz/ for bringing you this podcast. You can catch David Birch in person at the following events:

• 17/8 Fintech Australia / ConnectID Pre-Intersekt Registration Link https://events.humanitix.com/pre-intersekt-2023-event
• Join Dexter! 20/8 Fintech Cruise [2-5pm], Newcastle Harbour NSW  Email [email protected] for more details
• 22/8 Executive Workshop Au10Tix, Sydney Email [email protected] for more details
• 30/8 Fintech Australia Intersekt Conference, Melbourne https://www.intersektfestival.com/registration/

You can follow David's work -
visit www.dgwbirch.com
writing David's Books/Magazines/Articles
twitter David Birch

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Dexter is joined by Vishal Dalal, CEO International Business for Pismo. Pismo hit the headlines recently after it was announced Visa were acquiring the business for US $1bn.

Pismo offers Next-gen banking and cards technology through a truly cloud-native API platform. Vishal shares Pismo's plans for the region after they recently announced details of a partnership with Grow Finance.

Dexter and Vishal also discuss:

- Pismo's rapid growth 🚀
- The rise of Brazilian Fintech 🇧🇷
- The attraction of Australia to Fintechs like Pismo 🤝
- How Australia is perceived as a Fintech nation 🇦🇺
- Does Australia have the best coffee in the world ☕️

For more information https://www.pismo.io/

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Dexter chats to Patrick Connolly, the founder and CEO of  Anility, an innovative SaaS business helping procurement and contract managers to evaluate the financial health and corporate structure of third-party service providers.

About Anility
Anility is a software-as-a-service company that is innovating in the financial viability space. We produce reports that are used by procurement and contract managers to assess the financial health and corporate structure of third-party service providers that tender on public and private works.

Financial viability assessments are a mandatory part of most procurement processes. Our value proposition is to levearge technology to offer a faster, affordable and more user friendly solution than our competitors.

Find out more - https://www.anility.io/

About Patrick Connolly
With 10 years of experience in the financial viability space and 5 years as CEO of Anility, Patrick Connolly is a seasoned professional in the industry and a thought leader within the space. In his free time, Patrick challenges himself with ultra endurance events that test his mental toughness and help strengthen his entrepreneurial mindset.

Patrick sees a parallel between the sacrifice, resilience, and determination needed to succeed in these events and the qualities required to succeed as an entrepreneur. He combines his financial expertise with his well-rounded perspective to bring a unique approach to financial viability.

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