The Victorian government has teamed up with Fintech Australia to run the country’s first national fintech conference this November.
Fintech Australia picked up a $300,000 grant from the LaunchVIC innovation fund which will partly be used to run Collab / Collide, a two-day conference bringing together industry leaders from around the world with Australian fintech founders.
One of the key aims of the conference is to define Australia’s identity on the global fintech stage, Fintech Australia’s event director Vanessa Ronan-Pearce says.
“And also defining what growth areas are happening in different states,” Ronan-Pearce tells StartupSmart.
“We didn’t want to use the word disruption because it’s more about collaborating or colliding with the big players.”
Among the guest speakers announced are global fintech influencer and Secco Bank co-founder Chris Gledhill and Timelio CEO and co-founder Charlotte Petris.
Fintech Australia president Simon Cant says the event is all about founders sharing their stories with other founders.
“Given this is an event that has been put on by the Association of Fintech, we are going to be able to have conversations that really go into the depth of what are the challenges for fintech and what are the opportunities there,” Cant tells StartupSmart.
Through a series of keynote talks, round table discussions and master classes, Collab / Collide will explore core fintech areas including open data, blockchain, robo advice and payments.
“All of that will have an undercurrent of risk and compliance,” Ronan-Pearce says.
Day one will be open to everyone including government, investors and financial institutions while day two will be exclusive to the startup community.
Ronan-Pearce says attendees will get digital lanyards so they can connect immediately without swapping business cards and startups who attend will have the chance to connect with a broad section of the market including founders, VCs and potential mentors.
But they wouldn’t have been able to pull off the event at this scale without the backing of the Victorian government, Ronan-Pearce says.
FinTech Australia board member and MoneyPlace founder Stuart Stoyan adds that this support has played a key role in strengthening the fintech community.
“Melbourne has the world’s largest fintech meetup group outside of the UK and the US, so it is great to see the first FinTech Summit hosted in Melbourne,” Stoyan says.
Victoria’s minister for innovation Philip Dalidakis says it’s part of the government’s broader mission to make Victoria a leading startup destination in the Asia Pacific region.
“FinTech Australia’s inaugural fintech summit will help young companies and ideas develop to create jobs and industries that will support Victoria for decades to come,” Dalidakis says.
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Dinushi Dias is a freelance journalist and a former StartupSmart reporter and multimedia content producer. She is the co-founder of Melbourne-based production house Dinushi & Power.
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