Australian FinTech company profile #112 - Alex

1. Company Name: Alex

2. Website: alex.com.au

3. Key Staff & Titles:

Simon Beitz – Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Craig Fenwick – Co-Founder & Chief Finance and Product Officer

4. Location(s): Brisbane & Sydney, Australia

5. In one sentence, what does your fintech do?:

Alex is a credit-led neobank* aspirant with a goal of making finance faster, simpler and fairer. *They are not a bank yet.

6. How / why did you start your fintech company?:

Alex was founded in 2018 with the belief that finance overall is outdated from a customer service and technology standpoint. We aim to innovate the industry by bringing different leading-edge technologies and partners together for finance to be safer, simpler and more personalised.

7. What is the best thing your company has achieved or learnt along the way (this can include awards, capital raising etc)?:

We are different to the neobanks that have popped up thus far in that we’re credit-led and because of this, it means that we are already generating revenue and establishing a strong foundation to grow going forward. Our inaugural personal loan that we launched in July 2020 is already a multi-award winning product within just 3 months of operations. Acknowledging the unprecedented  global impacts of COVID with both health and economic implications at such an early time in Alex’s journey, we have been humbled by the customer take-up and support Alex has had with oversubscribed capital raisings.

8. What’s some advice you’d give to an aspiring start-up?:

Pick your white space in the market and go for it!  Success is entirely dependent on ruthless execution and making your own good fortune.

9. What’s next for your company? And are you looking to expand overseas or stay focussed on Australia?:

We’ve kicked things off with a Personal Loan and we can’t wait to launch additional offerings particularly in the deposits space once we are granted a Restricted ADI license from APRA in early 2021.

10. What other fintechs or companies do you admire?:

Marcus is impressive given it was born out of a legacy institution and has been able to scale on both sides of the balance sheet with very simple product propositions. Nubank with its focus on lending and solving access to credit for a new generation using new generation technologies.

11. What’s the most interesting or funniest moment that’s happened in your company’s lifetime?:

We started out working in an industrial shed next to Brisbane Airport – everyone who came to visit thought we were either mad or innovators.  But the real reason was because it didn’t cost us a cent!