Data61 wants Australia to go all-in on fintech and cybersecurity innovation
Data61 has published a guide on how Australia can leverage the cybersecurity and fintech talent present in the country’s startup scene, highlighting in particular the need to combine the two sectors with the strong backing of both industry and government to advance Australia’s global competitiveness.
In Startup Secrets: How Australia can create new businesses with fintech and cyber security industry collaboration, the country’s peak innovation group says it is important to look at the intersection of fintech and cybersecurity to solve complex problems via collaboration, rather than by competing.
According to Australia’s Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security Alastair MacGibbon, cybersecurity is the foundation of the country’s information economy and similarly, MacGibbon believes Australia’s financial services sector is world-leading in its robustness and adoption of emerging trends.
“Without world-class cybersecurity, trust in our ability to perform reliable financial transactions will erode, as will our confidence to develop new products and services for business and consumers,” MacGibbon wrote in the report’s foreword. “We are a nation of innovators, but too often our bright ideas are captured and commercialised by larger companies based overseas.”
The cybersecurity veteran also suggests that it is in the nation’s best interest for all facets of the economy to work together to develop an Australian-based industry, rather than continuing to consume imported ideas and technology — MacGibbon previously said Australia should reject the idea of replicating Silicon Valley.
The report, produced by Data61, Sydney-based fintech hub Stone & Chalk, KMPG, and the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce, says that Australia is too dependent on others for the protection of its most critical information, pointing to the fact that the country would never outsource its military to foreign companies as a comparison to why such technology should be created down under.
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Source: Data61 wants Australia to go all-in on fintech and cybersecurity innovation | ZDNet
