Flash Payments appoints Andrew Porter as Chief Commercial Officer ahead of rebrand and European expansion

Flash Payments (formerly FlashFX) have announced that Andrew Porter (pictured) has recently joined as Chief Commercial Officer. Porter, who has sat on the company’s advisory board for the last 3 years, will work alongside Co-Founder and COO, Nicolas Steiger helping to drive the next phase in Flash’s scale up journey, as they continue to take market share in the Australian digital payments space. Porter previously ran the local arm of World First, now owned by China’s Ant Financial, for 7.5 years and was an early and key player in the growth and success of Aussie Fintech pioneer OFX. More recently he has been involved in establishing and running the Irish Fintech unicorn TransferMate in Australia and is an investor in, and advisor to, a number of successful tech startups.

Porter, who has been involved in the International Payments space for over 24 years, comes with impressive scale up credentials, given the highly successful outcomes of both OFX and World First. “All the successful businesses I have been involved with over the last 24 years have been key innovators in their space,” said Porter. “I have always been impressed with the level of innovation Nicolas and the team have delivered to the Australian payments landscape, and I’m excited to be working more closely with them going forward,” he added.

Flash, which started out as an online cross-border payments service, led the way in the use of digital assets for delivery of international payments through a partnership with global giant Ripple. They were also the first Australian digital currency business to be granted an Australian Financial Services License after playing a key role assisting regulators to form guidance in this space.

Nicolas Steiger said, “We are excited to now have Andrew involved in the day-to-day operations, he has contributed a great deal as an advisor over the last few years, but I think we have reached a pivotal time in our growth where his skills are more valuable as an executive in the business.” Steiger also stated that, “Andrew’s experience in working with successive entrepreneurs to help scale their start-ups into very large businesses will be a great asset for us going forward.”

The move comes on the back of a major rebranding exercise undertaken over the last few months, which will officially launch in September. The new name, ‘Flash Payments’, and associated branding, reflecting the company’s shift from purely a global payments provider to a complete, all-in-one digital payment platform, which operates as a Tier 2 non-ADI provider under Cuscal.

Flash Payments have also signalled plans to expand internationally over the next few months with Steiger relocating to Europe to oversee the establishment of a European base for the company. Steiger said, “For some time we have seen a growing interest for our services from European businesses and there is definitely a need for our unique offering in that market.” He added, “We currently have a small team in the UK, but with the help of our European partners we plan to finalise the establishment of our Electronic Money Institution (EMI) Licence on the continent.”