Sharesight founding member of FinTech Australia

Earlier this year we joined forces with other Australian fintech companies to become a founding member of FinTech Australia, an association of startups in the financial services sector. The member companies span many disciplines from lending to payments to robo-advice and even some of the fintech hubs themselves.

The aim of our association is for Australia to become the leading market for financial technology innovation in Asia, and to provide a community for our member companies to learn and collaborate.

Australia has a unique blend of characteristics that provide the necessary DNA for innovation including a history of participatory capital markets and a strong, well regulated banking industry.

Unfortunately, the technology industry has historically been underrepresented in Australia. Tech comprises just 0.7% of the ASX 200 compared to 20% of the S&P 500. However, the local fintech sub-sector has grown very quickly mostly as a response to the size of the traditional financial services and banking sectors.

Fintech is certainly not an Australian invention, London is arguably the world’s most important hub, with Singapore doing its best to catch up. For its part, Sydney typically does crack most of the top 5 or 10 "cities for fintech" lists.

FinTech Australia has already been busy.

In addition to planning our first conference in Melbourne in November, we’ve submitted policy submissions to the federal government and regulatory bodies regarding:

• Financial reform
• Early stage investing
• Open financial data

And we’re working on a regulatory sandbox with ASIC.

If you’re a fintech, you can apply for membership.

It’s great to be part of this exciting community!

FURTHER READING

• Where Sharesight fits in FinTech Australia’s ecosystem map
• Sharesight wins 2017 Finnies award for Excellence in Industry Collaboration & Partnerships
• Sharesight's 10 year fintech journey