A national body representing fintech startups has elected its inaugural founding committee and put forward three key issues that need to be solved in order to make Australia the leading regional fintech hub.
Fintech Australia held its first AGM last week, electing Reinventure co-founder Simon Cant as its president and Timelio founder Charlotte Petris as vice president.
Petris is the only woman on the seven-person fintech committee.
It also includes Stone & Chalk CEO Alex Scandurra, MoneyPlace founder Stuart Stoyan and On-Market Bookbuilds co-founder Nick Motteram.
Fintech Australia will be lobbying in several areas to help make the country a leading player on fintech in Asia, Cant says.
“We want to be driving legislative, consumer, investor and industry change to help make Australia the leading market for fintech innovation and investment in Asia,” Cant tells StartupSmart.
The organisation has put forward its three “crucial issues” that it says need to be addressed first:
1. Improved access for fintech startups to government contracts
2. Improved workability of the government’s equity crowdfunding proposals
3. A “regulatory sandbox” that allows startups to innovate on new models without the expense of full licensing while still ensuring consumers are protected
Although the government’s fintech council has been criticised for being heavily concentrated in Sydney, Fintech Australia’s committee is “in keeping with the organisations’ national footprint” and draws from four different states.
“It was critical to us that Fintech Australia be a genuinely national representative body,” Cant says.
“It has been representative of the geographical diversity of fintech from day one and it’s our objective to only increase that.”
“We’re excited to be part of a truly national startup representative body and we’ll be working hard as a committee to continue to attract fintech ventures from around the country,” Petris adds.
Cant says he’s excited to get started as president of the group and to help further the momentum of fintech in Australia.
“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such a driven group of members and a highly engaged committee to accelerate the growth of fintech in this country and make Australia the leader in our region,” he says.
“In an organisation that has so many great entrepreneurs in it all we need to do is harness the collective energy.”
• Simon Cant (president): co-founder and managing director of Reinventure
• Charlotte Petris (vice president): founder and CEO of Timelio
• David Ball (secretary): Australian director and country manager of Yodlee
• Nick Motteram (treasuer): co-founder and managing director of On-Market BookBuilds
• Alex Scandurra (governing committee): CEO of Stone & Chalk
• Stuart Stoyan (governing committee): founder and CEO of MoneyPlace
• Jack Quigley (governing committee): founder and CEO of CrowdFundUp
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Denham Sadler is a former editor of StartupSmart. He was previously a journalist at the publication and has worked as a freelancer for the Guardian, the Saturday Paper and the ABC. In his spare time he likes puns and jaffles.
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