The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 47: Interview with Alexandre Chavotier, Co-Founder at Upworth

“Money works better when it’s all in one place; Upworth is a dashboard to rule them all,” says Alex

“For decades the greatest advantage for financial institutions was their monopolistic hold of your personal data … open banking changed that”

“You can refinance your mortgage within the Upworth App,” 

About Alex:

●      Co-founder and CEO of Upworth

●      Started career in investment banking in Europe before working at McKinsey and Quantum Black in Sydney. Was at the forefront of McKinsey´s work in AI, including the development of a trading solution that secured internal VC funding. Consulted to all the large Australian banks on an array of strategic topics and projects

●      Came back to Australia about 1 year ago to start Upworth after a 3-year stint in Mexico as right-hand to the Founder and CEO of ZeBrands, a successful scale-up comparable to Koala here

About Upworth: https://upworth.com.au/ 

●      Upworth is the wealth superapp. 

●      A one-stop-shop for your personal finances where you can connect all your accounts to track your entire net worth, access unique and personalized insights and apply to the best financial products in a few clicks

1.     What is your vision for Upworth -  Why did you want to start Upworth? 

2.     What do you do? Progress to date 

3.     CDR and Open Banking – enables the magic

4.     It’s not PFM. Its wealth management, it’s an enabler for other services – a dashboard to rule them all

5.     Fundraising. Best places & funds/people to raise from?

6.     Target market? Typical customer?

7.     What is unique or better about Upworth? Typical customer?

8.     Partners in Australia? 

9.     Thoughts/comments on Open Banking (and/or screen scraping)

10.  Message to the fintech market? More CDR!

Systematic change requires collective action

Misha has worked at a number of exciting high growth companies in tech as well as some well known brands in finance and banking, including Boston Consulting Group, the Commonwealth Bank, Uber, startups Eucalyptus (healthcare) and Vow (cultured meat).

Misha is the co-founder of Grapevine. Grapevine empowers individuals in Australia's tech scene by spotlighting personal stories and insights. Grapevine provides advice based on lived experience and general legal know-how, to reshape power dynamics for a safer, more inclusive environment.

1.What is the story behind Grapevine?
2.Are you a media platform telling stories, self help, legal help; all of the above?
3.What is wrong with tech culture?
4.What can be done – and the role Grapevine plays – esp role of making stories public – what media works best? LinkedIn, mainstream media?
5.Examples of toxic culture
6.What to do if you’re in a toxic culture
7.How to ask questions
8.What could be done differently within startups ?
9.Australia vs International experience
10.Help from big and small companies – get in touch with Misha & Grapevine

For more information, please visit:

Ask The Grapevine: https://www.askthegrapevine.com/

Whispli: https://www.whispli.com/ 

“Plan your home loan and financial life to be portable,” says Gino Farina

“A large part of my job is financial coach, but we use plenty of technology to help us” 

 In this episode we cover:

1.     There are 19,000 mortgage brokers in Australia; they run their own business, and are paid by the banks/others when they write loans and recommend other products.

2.     What does a mortgage broker do? Explanation of how brokers help clients, especially educating people about finance

3.     Who are your customers? Individuals, couples, businesses

4.     What are the key issues? Evaluation, decision making time

5.     What tech do brokers use?  Equifax (credit reports), Connective (Mercury), Sales Tracker (CRM, Sales process), Monday (CRM), Cash Deck, My Prosperity and Yodlee (looking at clients cash flows, home loans, interest rates), Canstar, has reviewed Sherlok.

6.     What is the bank loyalty tax? What could be done differently? Client engagement and financial advice is needed. There are 200 home loan providers in Australia, Commonwealth Bank has 25% market share.

7.     Differences between business loan broking vs residential

8.     What is churn and why do people move bank/provider every 7 years?

9.     Message to fintechs

You can get in touch with Gino at The Bondi Broker: 

 https://bondibroker.com.au/ 

Expanding access to home ownership: how Own Home is creating homeowners for the next generation of Australians

James Bowe Co-Founder of Own Home. OwnHome’s mission is to turn renters into homeowners. James background includes over 7 years with Bain & Co in the USA, UK and Europe, and stints at UBS, Macquarie Bank, a Barrister’s assistant and a debating coach.

 https://ownhome.com/ 

The essence of OwnHome is a loan for your deposit - just 2.2% and Stamp Duty to secure a loan up to 100% of the property value.

The example they give is Instead of saving $340K for a traditional 20% deposit on a median-priced home in Sydney, with a Deposit Boost Loan, aspiring Sydney homebuyers need roughly $60K, including stamp duty and typical upfront fees; customers can then access an 80% loan-to-value ratio loan from OwnHome’s list of lender partners.

OwnHome raised a $3.6m seed round in July 2021 (from angel investors plus German based Global Founders Capital, and Israeli based Entrée Capital), and their initial product was a ‘rent to buy’ scheme where ownHome bought the house you, the buyer wanted, rented it to you for 3-7 years while you paid them back at a pre-agreed price - 

In 2022 they pivoted to the Deposit Boost Loan - raised a $31M series A from Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s venture arm, X15 Ventures, and as well as Square Peg Capital, Global Founders Capital, Entrée Capital, AfterWork Ventures, and Possible Ventures.

OwnHome say they plan to support $500 million in home purchases over the next 18 months. 

In this episode, we discuss:

·        Why did James start Own Home? (started with Rent-To-Own, then pivoted)

·        What’s the key problem Own Home solves?

·        Who are the customers?

·        The fundraising journey; how hard is it?

·        What’s the business model? Pricing?

·        How do people repay the loan?

·       What Partnerships are involved?

·       Lending – why tier 2 lenders and not CBA?

·       Team size?

·        Long term vision?

Philippa Watson is CEO of ubank, an award-winning digital bank owned by National Australia Bank. Prior to ubank, Philippa held a range of senior executive roles spanning digital banking, technology, operations, customer service, sales, finance, risk management, compliance, and strategy. These roles have involved accountability for functions in Australia, USA, UK, China and South Africa.

Philippa is passionate about the role organisations can and should play in community wellbeing. She believes that banks should offer customers accessible, uncomplicated, and high-tech banking services to help them be more successful with money.

Philippa is a Director of Lifeline Australia and NAB Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the bank, and a member of Chief Executive Women. 

In this episode we discuss:

•Background to Philippa’s career in banking
•A brief history of ubank (started in 2008): savings accounts, home loans
•Describing the past two years; the purchase and integration of 86400
•Since the acquisition of 86400 in May 2021, what ubank has worked to do – work has been substantial. Summary: Retire the 86400 banking license and brand, and launch a new ubank brand; (existing 86400 customers were met with a new name (ubank), a refreshed and rebranded website, a new app to download in the app store, a new ubank card in their digital wallet and a new Online Banking Experience. Original ubank customers experienced a more gradual introduction to the new brand experience and have been upgraded to the new technology and refreshed brand). Matured the 86400 platform to support larger customer numbers. Built the technology, processes, capacity and skills to support the customer upgrade. Progressed the banking proposition to support future growth and improved service. Migrated all the original legacy ubank customers with Term Deposits and Self-Managed Super Funds to NAB.
•Why did NAB/ubank buy 86400? 
•What was the decision behind keeping the ubank name but using the 86400 tech stack?
•What does the tech stack provide? 
•Migrating customers to NAB and to the new ubank platform
•Decommissioning legacy technology assets
•Data and AI - how important are these things to ubank’s strategy? How do you leverage data from a customer and tailor products and services to help them? 
•Designing and delivering an acquisition engine that will attract and onboard active customers at scale through a combination of modern marketing techniques (for the digital generation of customers) and product features that have the potential for virality; and most importantly
•Using data and technology to engage customers and help them succeed with money. 
•Opportunity and challenges for ubank? 
•Defining the culture at ubank
•What is ahead for ubank?
•Opportunities for future products?

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 42: Max Cunningham, CEO, FCX

FCX describes itself as “A new era for private markets. FCX helps companies better manage their investors and securities.”

FCX was conceived and built for the private investment sector with the simple goal to replicate the listed market ‘user experience’ for unlisted assets. As a result, we are Australia’s first universal equity management platform built specifically for private companies. FCX enables unlisted companies to manage their cap table, employee equity, capital raising process, shareholder liquidity and much more via a consolidated platform.

FCX utilises class-leading Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) infrastructure and couples our deep capital markets experience to automate and streamline the many arduous and time consuming administration tasks associated with managing a company's investors and securities.

Max Cunninghan is the CEO of FCX; his background includes Group Executive for Listings at the ASX, Head of Equity Capital Markets at Goldman Sachs, and over a decade at Macquarie Bank.


In this episode, we discuss:

1.     Why FCX? What problem does it solve for?

2.     What does the name ‘FCX’ mean – is it a play on ASX?

3.     Why do secondary equity markets need to exist? 

4.     How does FCX work? Matched trades? (also legal angle, regulation, liquidity, disputes)

5.     Traction; typical clients? – can you discuss case studies? Success stories? How much do people raise?

6.     Benefits of FCX for equity owners and founders, staff etc

7.     What resources do FCX listed companies need? Audited accounts, company secretary?

8.     Growth of the FCX team, backing from Finclear

9.     How does FCX earn money? Annual Fees. Listing fees etc

10.  Do you de-list? How do you control the bad actors/bad players?

11.  Is FCX an on ramp for ASX?

12.  Future vision, plans etc

 
FinTechs interested in options for share registry, capital raisings etc: please contact Max on [email protected] 

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 40: Anthony Baum, Founder & CEO, Tic:Toc

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-baum-tictoc/

Anthony is the founder and CEO of Tic:Toc, a fintech company who’s passion is making financial services smarter, faster and simpler. 

Anthony launched Tic:Toc in 2017 with a vision to change the way Australians select their home loan. Their proprietary technology enabled a world-first: a cheaper home loan with the ability to be delivered to customers, with a contract, in less than one hour from the time they started their application. Since then, they’ve learned to leverage their award-winning home loans business as a customer facing proving ground. Tic Toc now offers their technologies to the industry through partnerships (PaaS), licensing (SaaS) and APIs. Not just for home loans, but anywhere data can be used to improve the customer experience or better manage risk.

Having run a division of a leading bank and with over 25 years of executive experience, Anthony’s philosophy is that technology should strip out as much time and cost as possible, to pass more benefits back to the customer. It's time to bring financial services up to speed. 

 In this interview we discuss:

Tic Toc is now 6 years old – Anthony describes the journey

Is Tic:Toc a lender? 

Does Tic:Toc partner with a bank, or banks, for the finance?

Partnerships and licensing – is that home loans as a service? Who does TicToc work with?

What’s the benefit of CDR to Tic Toc?

Opportunities for future products?

Contact: Mark Tibbles [email protected] 

Delighted to welcome Mark Tibbles, CEO of Australian Settlements Limited or ASL.

Mark is a Payments guy having spent most of the last 25 years in the payments sector, including stints at CBA, NAB, Westpac, Clydesdale & Yorkshire Bank, Verifone and Wirecard. Since 2019 Mark has been leading the ASL Team in the shift from aggregator to a next generation Payments Platform service provider. 

ASL is an Authorised Deposit Taking Institution (ADI) regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and a provider of B2B ‘Payments-Platform-and-Settlement as a Service’ (PPaaSS) solutions to banks, Fintechs and Corporates.

ASL’s goal is to provide platform access to the domestic rails – connect simply and almost self-serve in a complicated world. ASL partner with organisations that are leaders in their field – FIS for NPP connectivity, Shaype for our Platform and API led services, ISW for the latest Fraud and transaction monitoring capability. In the near future ASL will add leading Card Management and Switching services along with Digital Identity and a single pane of glass view of our services. 

 ASL are Payment tech led and Customer focused. ASL connects banks, fintech’s, Corporates and a range of other businesses to the Payments world.

 ·          ASL was originally formed by the Building Societies in NSW, VIC and QLD as a cooperative

·          ASL were the first non-Bank to be granted an Exchange Settlement Account (ESA)

·          ASL is now one of 12 Direct connectors to COIN and the NPP along with the big 4 - ANZ, Commonwealth, Westpac and NAB. 

·          ASL processes 100m+ transactions annually and in excess of $650m per day

ASL offer access to all the Domestic network requirements like:

·          New Payments Platform (NPP)

·          Direct Entry

·          Cards – Visa and eftpos with the ability to settle Mastercard

·          BPay

·          Financial Crime/Fraud Services

·          RTGS

·          Plus some of the lesser known and specialist services like Australclear and Pexa.  

ASL also represent  customers and give them a voice in the Industry with organisations like AusPayNet and Australian Payments Plus (AP+). 

Generally/historically, ASL supports banks, other financial institutions, fintech’s – however their suite of solutions are suitable for a range of organisations that have high payment/transaction flows. ASL see corporate users as a key future customer base along with other wholesale payment service providers who don’t have direct access to the domestic rails. 

What do ASL customers (generally) need? 

·          Access to payment rails / the payment’s world

·          Settlement solutions 

·          Financial crime management 

·          Payment’s consulting/advice/education – this is key – we help our customers navigate a very complicated industry

·          Partnering with an organisation with an Australian banking license (ADI)

What are their biggest pain points you solve for?

·          A partner that helps navigate the industry nuances

·          Accessing all services from a single partner

·          Getting

Mike Page, CEO Asia Pacific, Mogo Plus

To understand responsible lending for home loans; “We argue against HEM because the data tells the truth,” says Mike Page, Mogo Plus.

“We enable enterprises to make fully informed customer decisions through descriptive and predictive data insights,” adds Mike. 

“We are now in the CDR 2.0 phase; let’s focus on the customer – we will move towards more personalisation in financial services, more pro-active, and less reactive,” says Mike Page

“Let’s get Open Banking right before we go to other sectors” 

Mike Page CEO Asia Pacific of Mogoplus. MOGOPLUS is a global business providing data analytics and insights solutions to the enterprise market. They enable instant decisioning and straight through processing outcomes to financial institutions, credit unions and digital credit providers. Operating across Australia and the UK they work with Big 4 Tier 1 banks, leading neo banks, digital non-bank lenders and a range of alternative finance providers.

http://www.mogoplus.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pagemike/ 

What’s Mike's background? Why Mogo Plus?

What does Mogo Plus do? Transaction data for improving lending experiences, faster and instant decisioning (affordability, serviceability and risk); from home loans to BNPL, including hardship cases. Mogo Plus reduces manual processes. 

What’s the history of CDR – AND what’s the real benefit?

Are we now starting to see the benefit of CDR?

Opportunities for future products?

What bit of the value chain do you provide?

Covers work Mogo Plus is doing with Westpac (using CDR data for home loan decisioning) as well as their Hardship Program

Mortgage Stress Predictor service now helps banks understand impact of increase in interest rates/home loans 

What enterprises do you work with now, and in the future?

Can Parpera empower the business owner to run their company better?

Daniel discusses the three key things that all business owners want from a fintech or bank:

1. Help them receive money simply and easily
2. Help them understand and manage cash flow and tax obligations
3. Help them gain access to support services (not just banking products)

Daniel is the Founder and CEO of Parpera, an Australian fintech that aspires to empower people to improve the prosperity of the communities, and societies they’re a part of, through making it easier to do business.

Parpera provides everything you need to manage your business finances in one app - including business accounts, card, invoicing, and real-time spend and tax insights - and is available to Australian Sole Traders (with companies coming soon).

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielcannizzaro/ 

https://www.parpera.com/ 

In this episode we cover:

Daniel’s background prior to Parpera

About Parpera: What problem does Parpera solve for?

Parpera’s customers: Sole Traders, larger service based businesses. 4 key segments:

1.     Professionals: Consultants, Accountants, Bookkeepers

2.     Creatives: Designers, Marketers, Web

3.     Tradies: Painters, Plumbers, Electricians, Cleaners

4.     Health & Wellbeing: Personal trainers, Yoga Instructors, Beauticians

Product offering now, and in the future

The highs and lows of fintech/bank partnerships

Traction to date; Team, fundraising

Thoughts on Open Banking/CDR?

What partners does Parpera work with? 

Daniel's thoughts on the support fintechs get in NSW/Australia