Australian FinTech company profile #166 – Rush Gold
1. Company Name: Rush Gold
2. Website: www.rush.gold
3. Key Staff & Titles:
- Jodi Stanton – Director, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
- Mark Pey – Director, Co-Founder & Business Development
- Steve Bond – Director & Chief Operating Officer
- Alan Keenleside – Chief Technology Officer
- Steve Wilson – Chief Information Security Officer
4. Location(s):
Rush Gold is headquartered in Sydney, Australia – which is, in our view, the best jurisdiction in the world for gold holding due to Australia’s strict property laws.
We’re also active in 15 countries around the globe including Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, China, India, Jamaica, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa, USA, United Arab Emirates, Kenya & Austria.
5. In one sentence, what does your fintech do?:
A physical metals financial services platform, Rush Gold is the simplest, safest way to own direct title to physical gold and use gold as money (to buy, sell, save, spend and gift) in any quantity.
6. How / why did you start your fintech company?:
The short story is that we wanted to find a way to use technology to take the most trusted asset in the world (gold) and make it functional, flexible and available to all.
The long story is that I know there’s always been different set of rules for the privileged. I saw it first-hand working on Wall Street for one of the big guys. The GFC didn’t surprise me because I could see that money was broken. But while the rest of the world suffered, the big banks were bailed out. That’s not cool.
So I got out of there, took an 80% pay cut, and moved to Australia in search of a better way.
I’ve always been a bit of a gold bug. Owning gold gives you full control of your money. If the economy or the markets fall over – it’s still yours. But it shouldn’t just be for the privileged.
Back in 2015, Mark Pey and I dreamed up a plan to provide digital access to real gold to makes it accessible, portable and global, and Rush was formed. Our reasoning was that gold and technology are two things that people all over the world value and understand.
By putting them together and building Rush Gold over the last 8 years, we’ve helped over 36,000 account holders around the world build their own personal gold standard. We are excited to continue to grow and dream up new and better ways to serve our customers.
7. What is the best thing your company has achieved or learnt along the way (this can include awards, capital raising etc)?:
Obviously winning multiple Aussie Fintech and innovation awards over many years awards is up there!
Our first million dollar gold purchase was a huge milestone – and that links to the most valuable thing we’ve learned along the way.
We started out targeting smaller retail investors on a global scale but over the last year our growth has come more from high-net-worth investors including SMSF trustees. These users want all the functionality and ease of use of our online platform and appreciate the direct title to gold bullion in minutes, 24/7 liquidity, fuss-free processes and utility to use their gold as a transaction account with the Rush Debit card
8. What’s some advice you’d give to an aspiring start-up?:
Do not underestimate the importance of regulators.
We spent the first two years with eight law firms around the globe, running through every risk scenario we could imagine, obtaining second and in some cases third legal opinions, and even a private letter ruling from a regulator. As we’ve seen in recent news, taking shortcuts on compliance can be an expensive, stressful exercise and could even cost you your business.
So, spend time getting the regulation right. Building trust is important as a fintech, so it can’t be overstated how critical it is to be able to demonstrate the value your organisation puts into being worthy of consumer trust.
For example:
Rush operates under 2 Australian Financial Service Licences
Our anti-money laundering program was highlighted as best-practices in the region by the Australasian chapter ACAMS - the global association of Anti-Financial Crime professionals
Rush was the first digital gold company in the world to sign the LBMA’s (London Bullion Market Association) Global Precious Metals Code, which covers all aspects of commercial dealing. We have also aligned with best of breed providers across vaulting, audit and insurance.
9. What’s next for your company? And are you looking to expand overseas or stay focussed on Australia?:
We’re fired up to be working on our new Rush Gold app that will include a range new products that will cater to a higher value customer.
We’re onboarding exciting new partners for our unique Gold-as-a-Service platform, so watch out for more announcements later in the year!
10. What’s the most interesting or funniest moment that’s happened in your company’s lifetime?:
Recently the team was out to lunch to celebrate the implementation of our new AI-powered martech solution, and before we had ordered, a guy dressed from head to toe in black leather came over to the table and offered us his birthday cake from an enormous cake box. My team – obviously unaware who he was – politely declined and he wandered off to another table.
I was the only one who realised that it was the great Gene Symonds of the legendary band, Kiss, who was celebrating his 70th birthday alongside us that day!
