Fintechs are the fastest growing startup in Australia

Financial tech-innovators, or fintechs as they’ve become known, are dominating the Australian startup sector with Sydney their hub of choice, a new report shows.

And true to the nature of the startup industry, it is disruption in the traditional banking sector that is fuelling the growth of fintechs – as finance-savvy professionals exit the established institutions and put their skills to use in new ventures.

The 2017 Startup Muster Report, released on Wednesday, shows fintech startups were the fastest-growing type of business in the startup sector.

Fintech Australia chief executive officer Danielle Szetho says she isn’t surprised by result following recent moves by the federal government to open up the banking sector to new competition and digital innovation.

Ms Szetho says these changes have seen the industry evolve from “falling behind” to now taking a seat at the table as one of the globe’s top fintech markets.

“That’s because of the speed with which the government has basically moved to address the shortfalls in policy,” she said.

Ms Szetho said fintech-friendly initiatives such as the announcement at the May federal budget of an open banking regime to make consumers’ banking data available to new entrants, along with moves to support or challenger banks by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), has created an environment ripe for the industry to flourish.

“That heatedness and that combined willingness to come together to create change has created an interesting opportunity for a lot of enterprising founders,” she said.

Ms Szetho said Australia already has a very sophisticated financial services market with a strong and deep financial service talent pool.

“And that talent pool is also starting to become disruptive,” she said.

While digital disruption was taking a toll on thousands of traditional financial workers, some were seeing an opportunity and using their skills and knowledge to build fintech businesses.

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Source: Fintechs are the fastest growing startup in Australia – Nine Finance