Australian FinTech company profile #183 – Friendly Finance
Company Name: Friendly Finance
Website: www.friendlyfinance.com.au
Key Staff & Titles:
Layton Brooks – Director & Co-Founder
Oliver Peckham – Director & Co-Founder
Chris Sumner – Head of Marketing
Jenn Andaya – Brand Manager & SEO Lead
Location(s): Australia, USA & UK
In one sentence, what does your fintech do?: Friendly Finance are a smart loan matching service utilising application and bank statement data to match consumers with lenders in under a minute.
How / why did you start your fintech company?: Our experience from the US and UK markets led us to identify a gap in the Australian market. We wanted to drive technological change in loan matching, offering customers real time results from a whole market search.
What is the best thing your company has achieved or learnt along the way (this can include awards, capital raising etc)?: We have been lucky enough to grow organically without the need of outside investment. As a company, we’ve been very proud of this. Our YoY growth has surpassed our expectations and it’s allowed us to speed up our 5-year development plan.
What’s some advice you’d give to an aspiring start-up?: Keep going! If you truly believe in your service/product, don’t let setbacks derail you. Make sure you adapt to your clients’ needs as you grow and stay on top of the regulatory framework changes that may affect your business.
What’s next for your company? And are you looking to expand overseas or stay focussed on Australia?: We have expanded and grown significantly in the US market. Alongside this growth, we will be aiming to diversify our Australian market to accommodate additional loan and credit products.
What other fintechs or companies do you admire?: Despite being considered our ‘secondary’ competitors, we admire fintechs like Wisr and Fundo because of their innovative approach to providing services for personal finance.
What’s the most interesting or funniest moment that’s happened in your company’s lifetime?: Our team is 100% remote with no centralised office. It means we’re not geo-restricted in terms of recruitment and can find the ‘best in class’ employees. On a less serious note, team members that shall remain nameless become stranded in marsh land on hover crafts.
