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Sean O’Malley, AMP Bank – Evolving Small Business and Personal Banking.

February 14, 2025 · Hosted by Dexter Cousins

Sean O’Malley – AMP Bank

Dexter Cousins welcomes Sean O’Malley CEO of AMP Bank for his Fintech Chatter debut. 

It has been a BIG week for AMP Bank as they launched their new digital mobile-first bank aimed at helping small business owners manage their business and personal finances.

Dexter and Sean discuss the role of technology in modern banking and how an established financial institution tackles innovation.

Sean and Dexter uncover AMP’s extensive research on the needs of small businesses and the need for more human support in banking. Sean also shares the thesis on the problem they’re solving and the rapidly evolving nature of how, when and where people work.

And, Sean shares his secrets to successful partnerships showcasing their relationship with UK Fintech Starling Bank and their ‘Engine’ platform.

About Sean O’Malley 

Sean O’Malley was appointed the Group Executive of AMP Bank in September 2021, after 11 years at AMP. 

He is responsible for the management and growth of AMP Bank, delivering its future growth strategy, uplifting its digital capability and ensuring the ongoing delivery of high-quality products and services to customers.

He has over 25 years of experience in delivering enhanced business results, predominately in the financial services industries.

About AMP Bank

AMP Bank is aiming to disrupt the small business banking market in Australia. They have launched a fully digital, 24×7 human-supported, full-service Bank to help serve the needs of the Australian small business community.

They aim to help Small businesses get started, survive and thrive, embracing the challenge of bringing new thinking, new ways of working and new bold ideas to a 26 year old Bank, inside a 175 year old Super & Wealth business.

Key Takeaways 

  • AMP Bank has launched a fully digital offering for small business owners.
  • The future of work is evolving, with more emphasis on gig and flexible employment. Sean sees continued growth in small and micro businesses as a result.
  • The banking industry faces challenges in balancing innovation and risk management.
  • Brand reputation is crucial for banks, especially in the digital age.
  • Curiosity and a willingness to learn are key traits for success.
  • AMP Bank is focused on building a customer-centric culture.
  • Partnerships are vital for delivering innovative banking solutions.

Chapters

00:00   The Launch of AMP Bank’s New Platform

03:39   Targeting Small Businesses & Personal Banking Customers

06:03   Insights on the Future of Work

11:13   Viewing Business Failures as Learning Opportunities

14:18   Embracing the Challenges of Modern Workforces

17:31   Lessons from Fintech Startups and Neobanks

23:00   Navigating Change and Innovation at AMP

27:28   The Importance of Strategic Business Relationships

31:53   Risk Management in Fintech Partnerships

35:58   Talent Acquisition and Staff Retention

38:59   Managing Stress and Building Resilience

43:50   Future Outlook for AMP Bank

What happened next.

This episode was published in February 2025, as AMP Bank launched its fully digital offering for small business owners on Engine, the banking platform Starling Bank built for itself and now runs for other banks.

In July 2026 Sam Everington and Mark Bernhardi of Engine by Starling joined Dexter at the World Credit Union Conference in Sydney. Mark says it was AMP getting a bank live on Engine in twelve months that first drew him to the company. Engine has since partnered with SBS Bank in New Zealand, and Sam explains how AMP now shares the same platform with Starling, Salt Bank in Romania and Tangerine in Canada.

Links from this episode.

AMP Bank on Fintech Chatter.

More on digital banks.

Full transcript.

Lightly edited for readability — filler words removed, wording otherwise unchanged.

Dexter Cousins
Fintech Chatter Podcast, brought to you by Tier One People, the leaders in executive search for fintech ventures.

If you were going to build a bank in 2025, how would you do it? I got to ask this question to today’s guest, Sean O’Malley, CEO of AMP Bank. I’m Dexter Cousins, your host and the founder of Tier One People, the executive search firm dedicated to fintech. We’re trusted by Revolut, Wise, Lendi and many others to find exceptional leaders for mission-critical hires. You can find out more at tieronepeople.com.

AMP Bank launched this week, having undergone a complete transformation. AMP Bank now offers a unique digital banking solution catered for startups and small businesses. By taking a first principles approach to banking, they’ve built a bank that promises to support small business owners, to make their life easier, not harder. I chat to Sean about the challenges of rebuilding a bank within an established financial institution, plus he shares his experience partnering with Starling’s Engine, the platform powering AMP Bank.

But before I chat to Sean, I’ve got a huge favour to ask. We don’t seek sponsors and we’re ad-free, so that we can give you the most authentic content we can. So if you could, please follow and leave a review, or if you’re watching on YouTube, subscribe, like, and please leave a comment. We take all feedback on board. Now, on to today’s show.

Hello and welcome to Fintech Chatter, the podcast where I chat with leaders in fintech about the secrets to their success. Today’s guest is Sean O’Malley from AMP Bank. Sean, welcome to the show.

Sean O’Malley
Yeah, thanks, Dexter. Great to be with you.

Dexter Cousins
It’s great to be here, in the birthplace of Australian fintech, Stone & Chalk. We’re in this building.

Sean O’Malley
We are. Yeah, launched 10 years ago this year.

Dexter Cousins
Incredible how quickly that’s gone.

Sean O’Malley
It is, it is.

Dexter Cousins
Well, look, thanks, and welcome to your Fintech Chatter debut. I don’t know if excited is the word, but I’m really intrigued about this chat that we’re going to have, for many, many reasons. You’ve got some exciting news of the official launch of AMP Bank. So I wondered if you could share with us, before we go into the greater details, just a little bit about what AMP Bank is, and what the relaunch is about.

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely. Yeah, it is a delight, and we are blessed to be here in, yes, the birthplace. I’ve been at AMP for quite a while now, actually, about 11 years, so I was here when Stone & Chalk kicked off, and obviously AMP was a big part of Stone & Chalk. So we’re a 26-year-old bank today. Our bank is largely an intermediated bank. Mostly what we do today is home loans and deposits. Most of those are originated by mortgage brokers; deposits are a bit of a mix, by fixed income brokers and digitally. What we’ve been working on for the last 12 months, and what we’re about to go to market with in early February, so we’re really close, is actually a whole new digital offering, really targeting small business, but also for our personal consumers. We’re really excited to be launching a truly, fully digital offering, really out there to help the small end of small business. They make up a huge proportion of Australia: there are 2.5 million-plus small businesses in Australia. We think there’s a gap in that market, so we’re really delighted to be launching that very, very soon.

Dexter Cousins
As a potential customer, I can assure you there’s a huge gap in that market. One of the biggest frustrations, particularly being in this industry, is my experience of being a retail customer and a small business customer with a bank that’s renowned for being great for small business. The digital… well, the whole experience just ain’t that great, to be honest.

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely. And look, we’ve had that feedback over and over from the research we’ve been doing with small business. I have spent a fair amount of time in a big bank, one of the ones here in Sydney, and had some accountability for small business, and I saw the frustrations from inside that organisation, as well as from knowing a number of people who run their own small businesses. So it’s a frustration that is quite common, and it’s a frustration that we think we can help with. We think technology is part of that solution, but, and we’ll talk a bit more about it, it’s not technology only. Really importantly, it’s not technology only. That’ll really help, we think, bring this…

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. I’m empathetic and understand the challenges, and why my bank, and I think other banks, struggle with it. But they’re their challenges, and they’re always asking the customers the burden, whether that’s competing P&Ls or whatever it might be. And that’s why I’m really interested to talk about the thinking that you’ve got behind this, because we’ve seen, particularly in fintech, a lot of startups try and solve this problem as well, and it’s a really difficult one. It’s not just the banking part; you’ve got the accounting part that comes into it as well. There’s a whole host of different solutions out there, and while they’re exciting, as a potential customer you also get overwhelmed, because it’s not another app, not another thing I’ve got to integrate. In terms of the customers that you’re aiming at: you said 2.5 million. Is this, like, mum and dad businesses, tradies?

Sean O’Malley
Yeah, it’s mainly… so we’re targeting the small end of small business. So you think the solopreneurs, the startup businesses, the side hustlers, the mums and dads, the tradies. Yes. Being purely digital, it’s going to be aimed towards businesses that are probably digital themselves, and we know a lot of businesses, especially smaller businesses, operate their business digitally. So that’s the sort of… we’ll be there for businesses from one to 25 employees in size. That’s the aim. And importantly, the platform and the service we’ll be bringing is all about helping small business owners, but also their personal banking, because we know that for nearly all small business owners, their personal banking and their small business requirements are very intertwined. So for us, we’ll be bringing something that helps small business owners run their small business, but also helps them run their personal banking as well.

Dexter Cousins
I’m really interested in the research that you’ve done. And look, I’m coming from, not selfish purposes, but as somebody who’s been involved in the human capital space for well over 25 years now. I’ve always had an eye on innovation and the impact that that would have on our working lives, and this term “future of work”, I think, is a bit nonsense, because it’s been happening for a long time. And what we’re seeing, I think, particularly with AI, if I just look at the fintech space, is more businesses emphasising technology as the path to scale rather than hiring people. So I think it’s very possible that you could have a 25-person business that’s valued at well over a billion dollars, and we probably already do, in many, many instances. What research have you undertaken around how we’re starting to change the way in which we generate wealth and generate revenue? Because the job for life, 20 years with one company, isn’t really what my kids or your kids are going to experience.

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely. We talk often about how we help our people really develop an ongoing thirst for, and understanding of, how you learn, because the nature of work today… what we did 20 years ago isn’t what we did 10 years ago, certainly isn’t what we do today, or what we’ll do in a year or two’s time. So I think finding ways to help people continue to learn and evolve is super important. We’ve spent a lot of time internally looking at that. AI is one example, but I don’t think it’s the only example for us.

When we did a lot of research with businesses, to understand what’s important, particularly for the smaller businesses, interestingly, a couple of things you talked about really came through. One: the nature of their work, but also of their customers, is changing really rapidly, and that’s hard for businesses of all sizes to keep up with. So, how do I stay on top of what’s the latest in AI? Or how do I stay on top of what’s the latest in the way to market my business, and where are my customers? How do I use data analytics to identify my customers’ needs, et cetera? That really came through as a really big need when we did the research.

The other really interesting thing, and you mentioned technology: I’m with you. I’m not a technologist, but I know enough about technology over my career to be dangerous. A lot of the research really pointed to people wanting businesses that are tech first, but that actually have a human set of support. Particularly for big purchases, and for purchases that people don’t make that regularly, there’s a great desire to be able to operate digitally, to be able to operate leveraging technology, but to know that there’s a human that’s actually there in need. And when we researched specifically for banking, a lot of the research said that was a really important feature: people wanted to know there is a human they could talk to, that it’s not only the computer, it’s not only the app or the digital interface, but there is actually a person there. So that came through really strongly.

The other part that came through really strongly, and I think it’s a real feature, is that more and more businesses recognise they need to partner really effectively up and down the value chain to be able to deliver value. Very few businesses are able to meet customers’ needs in totality, in whatever segment, whatever proposition you’ve got. The ability to partner up and down the value chain is super important, and for us, that’s something we’re very fixated on: how do we develop that capability to be partner-capable, partner-friendly, and really leverage partners, not just to deliver services, but truly up and down the value chain?

Dexter Cousins
Now, you talked about approximately 2.5 million small businesses, solopreneurs, et cetera. I firmly believe that in the next decade you’re going to see that at least double.

Sean O’Malley
Yeah.

Dexter Cousins
What would be the challenges that you’d see in terms of onboarding and servicing? We’ve talked about wanting to have a human at the end of it. In my own personal experience, the challenge for me with my bank is the mission that I have of getting to speak to that person. I actually worked out that over the course of the calendar year last year, between myself and my wife, who’s my business partner, we invested two business days on hold to our bank about things that weren’t our problem.

Sean O’Malley
Yeah. Look, I’ve got a lot of sympathy and a lot of empathy for exactly that, Dex. If I go to the first part of your question: we see a lot of business startups, but we also see a lot of business failures. And I think that’s a good thing, because you actually need startups and you need failures. All of the literature shows us, all the lived experience shows us, that failures aren’t failures; failures are learning opportunities, and then something new will be reborn. But being a service provider in its broader sense, as a bank, for small businesses means you need to be conscious that you will have a high failure rate. And so as a business, you need to structure your business model in a way that protects your shareholders and protects your capital, but equally is still a supporter of them. That’s a balance we need to strike: how do we support startup businesses and the growth of those startup businesses, in a way that isn’t going to destroy shareholder capital, and isn’t going to ruin our business? Because naturally, sustainability is super important for us.

We talk internally about wanting to help businesses get started, to survive, because we know the first couple of years are super difficult, and then to thrive. We’ve designed solutions and propositions that help those businesses get started, survive those first couple of years that are really difficult, and then thrive and grow and really, really succeed. And I am with you. We see that the number of businesses starting up each year actually continues to grow. I’m a big believer that the nature of employment will continue to evolve. Gig workers: we sort of had a boom, it’s come off a bit, but I think we’ll continue to see more small businesses, in all forms, be a more common way that people are working. And so we want to be part of that.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. I think it’s been really fascinating for me to see this, having recruited through three major economic revolutions. The dot-com crash was the first one I survived. Then the GFC, where I was right in the eye of the storm; my clients were Macquarie, Babcock & Brown, Allco, the international investment banks. And I don’t know how I would describe this last 5 years, right? We’ve had crashes, booms, crash, boom.

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely.

Dexter Cousins
And so it’s very much… I don’t want to use the term paradigm shift, but certainly rapid communication and technology are having an impact on the trends now. But what I think’s been really fascinating is to see that the nature of employment, for me, is actually going full circle. In the late ’90s, the clients that I had had 60% of their workforce on temporary contracts, and we’re talking about a huge utilities provider, right? And I think with the nature of work from home, the nature of the gig economy, the nature of technology, we’re going to see very much a shift back to independent contractors and temporary workers making up that workforce, because the very nature of business, as you pointed out, keeps changing and evolving.

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely.

Dexter Cousins
And having a static workforce just doesn’t…

Sean O’Malley
No, absolutely. And like you, I’ve seen the ebbs and flows, and the periods where there’s a huge shift towards permanent employment, permanent workforces, particularly across the banking industry but across all industries, and then you’ve got more contractors. I think we’ll continue to see that evolve. I also think the actual capacity of our country is often a challenge for us. We’ve been in very strong employment markets; we’ve been at full employment or better for a long time in Australia. I think that puts pressure on the capacity of our workforce, and the capacity to bring in the talent that we need. Obviously Australia’s looked at skilled migration, particularly, to fill those gaps. Add to that, we’ve seen cycles of global workforces versus leveraging only local workforces, and obviously COVID had some impacts on the nature of that work.

For me, what all that points to is that it’s going to continue to change. Anyone who thinks that what we’ve got now is what we’re going to have in a year’s time or two years’ time is probably wrong. I think we’ll see continuing evolution and continuing change in the way that workforces are composed. I’m a big believer that we will see more gig-style work. I think we’ll see that style of work spread into different segments and different parts of our economy than we’ve seen so far. There’s a little bit of a belief that it’s good for some segments of our economy but not others. If I played forward 5 years, probably shorter, I think we’ll see more of that style of work. Technology enables that, and our ability to rapidly shift from primarily in-office to exclusively remote identified that you can actually perform work anywhere. So I think we’ll see that continue.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. And if you look at Australia, right, one of the things that I really can’t get my head around is payroll tax. Why would you tax a business for creating jobs?

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely.

Dexter Cousins
So you’ve got that, and now we’ve got the right to disconnect. So everything is weighted against the employer, where it’s very high risk. Increased salaries as well, since COVID. So there’s the risk now, as well as the cost, on top of inflation. We’re no longer in zero times, so the cost of capital is to me, right? And so we’ve got this productivity challenge as well. Five years ago, a 0.1% uplift in productivity would probably have given you a profit. Now you’ve got to get a 6% uplift in productivity to get that profit from any capital that we take on.

Sean O’Malley
I absolutely agree. And you overlay that with… we’re a Sydney-based business. We’ve got people all around the country, but we’re largely a Sydney-based business, and you overlay the cost of living challenge, which is real. So for me, whilst we certainly think face-to-face is important, and there are lots of benefits about having time in the office, we think flexibility and a hybrid approach is the right approach. I was reading this week that there are some organisations moving back towards absolutely 5 days in the office. I don’t subscribe to that. I think that’s probably a short-sighted response. I think flexibility and hybrid is the way that we’ll continue to work. I’m not sure about the balance now; we’re probably still a bit too much remote, but I don’t think it’s entirely in office either. So we’ll find what the right balance is, but I’m a big believer the balance is super important. And I also really think that across Australia we’ve got this real challenge around the cost of living in our big cities. We’re a big country, but we hover in our big cities, and the cost of living in our big cities is a really…

Dexter Cousins
I’ve moved out, and the cost of living is still equally as high up in Newcastle and on the coast, if not higher than it is in Sydney, right? So I think there is a real challenge. But all of these indicators… and I think this is what’s really interesting about the proposition that you’re creating. If I look back over this last decade, and I look at neobanks, not just here but also in the UK as well, we’ve seen some challenges. I think the mistake that was made here in Australia was perhaps: hey, let’s create an Up, and better us. When actually the big four banks had already done that. Whereas in the UK, I think they were a bit behind on digital, whereas here in Australia I think there’s been a real focus on digital ever since the GFC.

And then I think the second part of it was very much what you’ve mentioned. I’m thinking here of my friends at 11:FS, who helped NatWest build Mettle, what, six, seven years back: a business bank proposition that didn’t quite take off. And perhaps the reason is that, again, it’s this homogeneous “let’s take what we’ve done for decades or centuries and put it in an app”. What are some of the learnings that you had from what you’d seen previously, where you thought, hey, these bets could work, but these bets we need to avoid?

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely. And I think there are a few things there. To be clear about where we’re partnering: we’re leveraging the tech platform from Engine, which is the backbone of Starling, which we think is probably the most successful of those startups in the UK. So we’re leveraging that, but it’s much more than technology, and it’s much more than the app and the digital front end. Having been in banking here in Australia for over 20 years, I’ve certainly seen that boom of fintech startups and the neobanks. And what I think is: it’s hard to be a bank. It is hard to be a bank. It’s hard to be a small bank, it’s hard to be a startup bank, and at times it’s hard to be a big bank. It is hard to be a bank, and it is much more than the digital front end, or an app, or a set of features.

We’re very clear. I think you’re absolutely right: Australian banks have been pretty good digitally for quite a while, and there’s research that shows we’ve been pretty good for a while. For us, as a 26-year-old bank that’s largely been intermediated, we’d been working on digital capabilities, but we needed to really start again. What we’ve done in the new division is very deliberately a greenfield startup bank, not trying to digitise our legacy bank. As I mentioned, I spent time in a big bank here as well, and that’s really hard. You maybe don’t see that in the digital UX, but you see it when you try to do some things that are a little more complex. You see it in the disconnect between channels. You see it in your contact centre or your branch not having the same capability the app does. So what we said is there’s a real opportunity here to leapfrog what a number in Australia have been working on for a number of years, and go to the next generation. And the next generation, for us, is digital all the way through. Yes, absolutely, it’s the digital app and the digital front end, but it’s actually digital all the way through: one tech stack, not the legacy spaghetti that we’ve all had to deal with. So that’s quite different.

Going back to fintech and what I’ve seen there: it’s really hard to get established as a whole new business, and a number of our fintechs and neobanks have been, I think, a little unclear about what part of the market and what part of the problem they’re trying to solve. There are a number that have been, I think, somewhat successful in being niche providers. But the challenge of getting both sides of your balance sheet to create economic value has been a drawback for a number of neobanks. If I start with deposits only, what am I going to do with those funds? If I start with lending and I haven’t got deposits, how do I fund my lending? So the challenges of a startup are real, but for a bank they’re often about how you get the balance sheet right. What we’ve looked at is that we’ve got an existing business, and if we can start this new greenfield business, targeting small business, really to help small business, we’ve got a way to create economic value in a combined sense from day one. That’s a very different proposition to doing a startup business. So we’re trying to balance that startup culture, separate from our bank, and indeed largely separate from our broader organisation, but with a business model that helps us create economic value from day one.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. We talked at the beginning of the interview about this being the birthplace of fintech, and Stone & Chalk. AMP were, I think, heavily involved in the space, and had a venture fund, and pulled out. And I can’t help but think that the timing coincided with the Royal Commission. On the point that you made before, particularly neobanks struggling with their value prop: my feeling was they emphasised the Royal Commission too much, and tried to get a leg up from that. And it works for a little bit, but like we see with politicians, right, you can bag the competition, but when you go into power you’ve got to deliver, and it’s a lot harder to build and create something than it is to bag and knock something down.

Sean O’Malley
That’s true.

Dexter Cousins
I can’t help but think that the Royal Commission was a wasted opportunity to actually really effect change and innovation. And what we then saw, unfortunately, was businesses like AMP, who were all in on supporting the ecosystem, having to retreat and pull out, because the funds had to go into fixing some problems, which, ironically, could have been fixed together with the work that was being done in there. What’s the sense now within the organisation around innovation, and how much of a struggle has it been for you internally to push the investment of, hey, look, we’re going to start all over again? Because I would imagine that’s not an easy conversation to have.

Sean O’Malley
It’s not. And as I said, I’ve been at AMP now for a bit over 11 years, so I lived through the Royal Commission. A couple of things: AMP has a 176-year history, so the couple of years around the Royal Commission, and a short period of time after, sit within what’s been a long and storied history in our country. What we certainly saw, and not just in AMP but right across the industry, was the Royal Commission and then the reactions from shareholders, from executives, from boards and from regulators saw a lot of discretionary investment needing to be directed towards risk and compliance and remediation. All right across the industry had large remediation programs, and they absolutely limited our ability to invest in, frankly, innovation, and in more forward-looking things. I think all organisations in our industry became very inward-focused, and rightfully so. There were things that needed to be fixed. Thankfully for us, those things are fixed and now well behind us, and so it has seen a return to looking at how we best solve more customer problems, how we best grow, and how we do that through embracing innovation, both internally and with partners. We’ll touch on that a bit more.

Has it been tough to make that pivot? Absolutely. It’s been something that myself and my colleagues on the executive committee have talked a lot about: how do we make that transition from an internal focus on fixing things to more of an external focus, more of a willingness to invest in things, some of which will work and some of which won’t? When you’re doing remediation and you’re fixing problems, it’s very clear what problem you’ve got to solve, and so your tasks and your actions are actually quite clear. It’s quite mechanical: do this and that will happen. When you’re talking about innovation and growth, it’s a different story. You need to be willing to try things and let things fail, learn from them and move on.

Dexter Cousins
And I guess you’re also betting on a future that doesn’t exist, hoping it will come into reality. It’s taking a punt, right?

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely. And with differing stakeholders, we’ve got differing appetites for the future, and different stakeholder sets who’ve got different views on risk. So yes, it has been difficult. I feel very supported by our group CEO, Alexis George, but also by our board. The investment we’ve made in bringing this new digital small business bank to life, for our organisation, is a big bet. So that did take a deal of research and a deal of work to convince the executive and the board that this is the right course of action. And I think it’s a real indication, for us, of returning to a focus on customers and the future: a focus on how we help more customers solve more problems, but also on the growth of our business into the future.

Dexter Cousins
I want to have a chat now about partners, because if I look at the whole banking as a service premise, there was a lot of promise in that premise from 2018 through to 2022, and it’s died off quite a bit. We’ve seen some pretty bad things happen in the US with that model. It has its challenges, and I think especially when you’re working with international businesses, which perhaps don’t have a presence here in Oz, you’ve got all those time zone challenges, the nuance of the local market and regulators, et cetera. What have you found have been the challenges and the benefits of working with Starling?

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely. We’ve been working with a number of partners through the last few years, partners of different sizes and different scale, and I think the choice of who you partner with is actually incredibly important. There’s a technology fit, there’s a capability fit, but there’s also a culture fit, and that’s a really important feature. That’s what we really saw with Starling and with Engine, and we’ve been really, really pleased with that. We were very attracted to their approach to technology, and the way in which technology can be used to help solve customer problems and business problems. So we were very much attracted to that, but also to the culture. If I was to describe it, it’s a very customer-first, customer-centric culture, but more than that, it’s actually a whole embedded way of working. So that attracted us, and we’ve been pleased seeing that.

It is difficult working with international partners, especially for businesses that are used to being entirely domestic. We’re a domestic bank, and so we’re very used to working in Australia. For this particular piece of work, we’ve had a partner in the UK, a partner in Poland, and Australia. Those time zone challenges and those coordination challenges are real, but equally I think they’ve helped us expand our minds on what’s possible. We’ve had offshore partners for a while, service delivery partners, but this is more of a strategic partnership. Our approach to it has been very much a strategic partnership, and the cultural alignment on that is important: shared objectives, shared balanced scorecards, shared measures of success, really, really important. But also an open… but challenging relationship at its heart.

If I compare that to a few other partnerships, I think getting that balance right is super important. It’s very easy for banks, particularly bigger banks, to think about themselves as the centre of those relationships, and not really have a peer-to-peer relationship. We’re trying to develop, and have been pushing really hard to have, peer-to-peer relationships. Engine is one of those, but there are others that are absolutely part of the proposition that we’re bringing to market, some of which we’ll launch with, and others that will be fast followers. That partnership model is super important. It’s a real capability that doesn’t come without deliberate actions, deliberate investments, and fostering that culture and capability.

Dexter Cousins
There’s obviously a lot of risk attributed to partnering with technology providers, particularly when you’re talking about core banking solutions. Over the years I’ve seen a number of people approach me saying, hey, we’ve got this solution, we’re looking to put it in front of banking CEOs, and they’re like two people, and you think, can I read the room, guys? What have you found in terms of resources, risk mitigation, governance, security: the boxes they need to tick if you’re going to work with a fintech solutions provider?

Sean O’Malley
There absolutely are, and you’re absolutely right. And I think it’s a bit about horses for courses as well. If I look at our existing partners, and the partnerships that we’ve been working on, that we’ve had and that have fallen away, it’s a very different proposition depending on what the nature of that partnership is. The core banking system, for us, is absolutely at the heart of our business. So our ability and our willingness to take a real punt… we talked to a few smaller organisations about banking as a service and core platforms, and it’s just beyond our risk appetite. We couldn’t put the bank in jeopardy. It’s very different if I’m talking about a plug-in service, where I’ve actually got multiple alternatives, and if something goes wrong I can plug this out and substitute. So I do think the nature of the service is really important. As a bank, that’s a really important consideration for us. Obviously we need to be thinking about what happens if the worst happens, and how we protect ourselves and our customers if the worst happens for a partner. So we’ve got, as you’d expect, the contractual and resilience type arrangements in place for that. But we don’t want that to ever happen, because probably the bigger risk for us is actually a brand risk. As a big brand in this market, whilst our bank actually is not as well known as our brand overall…

Dexter Cousins
The CBA system goes down for an hour and it’s made the news for months, right?

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely. For us, as a 175, 176-year-old business, the brand reputation issue and impact is as real, and probably more impactful, than the technology risk. So again, that goes to the nature of the service being really important. As we think about where we will partner, who we will partner with, and what we won’t partner for, that reputation is really paramount. And again, that goes to the cultural aspect of the alignment. I see a lot of really good technology put on my desk: have a look at this. The culture and the underlying resilience are super important considerations, as we think about what that will mean if things go well, but equally what that will mean if things don’t go well. So brand and reputation risk is a really important consideration for us.

Dexter Cousins
You’ve brought in a fair amount of talent that’s come from the fintech space. I remember when you acquired 86 400, and having a conversation with some of the execs there, who were clients at the time, and saying, hey, have you really got the appetite to try and mix oil with water? And the only way you can mix oil with water is you need an emulsifier, and you need to shake the hell out of it. And I think that analogy was enough for them to say, yeah, I don’t think I’ve got the energy to shake that much.

Sean O’Malley
I don’t know if I’m the emulsifying agent, right?

Dexter Cousins
So how have you found bringing people into an environment where you’re moving fast? I wouldn’t say move fast and break things, because within fintech you’ve always got the guide rails of regulation, but it is a very different environment, where there are a lot more hurdles to get through, decisions are slower, and it takes time to get things through. About 90% of people moving from large corporates into fintech startups leave within the first 6 months, because it’s just too different an environment. And I haven’t really done any studies on people moving the other way, so I was really curious to understand how you’ve seen people make that transition, and what are some of the qualities that you look for when you’re bringing people in?

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely, Dex, and it’s critical. I’ve talked about partnering and the choice of partners, but I think talent selection and retention is actually our most critical item. It’s the thing I think about, and probably spend most of my time thinking about. We are being very deliberate about hiring, and have brought in people with varied experiences. But it is real. There is a shock if you’ve spent your entire career in fintech or in small business and then you’re put into a big business. Well, we’re not really a big business, but it is different, and there are things that come with that. So what are we trying to do? We’re definitely incubating this business a bit in cotton wool, a bit to the side, but we haven’t gone as far as going to a garage in Redfern. We’re not at that step, although I know for a number of businesses that works, and it’s a really great step. We’re doing a startup greenfield business within the bank, within a big organisation, but we’re being very deliberate that there are things that are different in our startup division from our existing bank, and indeed from the organisation. We’re bringing in people who’ve got experience of what agile ways of working and faster, more startup cultures look and feel like, and we’re trying to balance that with some people who do have some experience working in bigger organisations. That balance is really important, and we’re trying to get the balance right. I’m sure there’ll be somewhere we get it wrong, but we’re trying to get the balance right.

And indeed, when people ask me what’s the biggest risk to the new division and the new bank working, I actually think it’s about not changing enough from the bank and the business that we are today. That’s with the greatest respect to the bank and the business that we are today, but we need to be different. So I spend a lot of my time dealing with my colleagues and my internal stakeholders on how this is different, and having the right space and room for it to be different. Businesses have an inertia about them that sucks new things towards the existing, and we’ve spent a lot of time trying to ensure that the new is given some space to be new. So having the right people, who’ve lived through that, is super important. Having people who have spent time in organisations of different sizes, small, medium and large, is very helpful, and that’s really what we’ve been looking for.

We’ve also brought on some fantastic people who have actually run their own business. For a business trying to serve small business, I think that’s really important too: that you actually have some people who’ve got lived experience of what being a small business owner is. We’ve just onboarded our first group of contact centre, customer service people, and none of those are from a bank. They’re all from different industries, and a couple of them run their own small business. So we’re trying to bring in different talent, people with different experiences. And then the biggest thing I’m trying to do is not let the inertia, and in some ways the bureaucracy, of a bigger business really curtail the new business. Indeed, what we’re trying to do is build the flag on the hill: the new business is the way we want the whole organisation to work. So we’re trying to create a different culture and a different speed of operation that actually becomes the new wther whole L people work.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. You just touched on there what I think is a real challenge for anybody in your role, and anybody trying to effect change and innovation within an established organisation. Plenty of people in my network who’ve been in those roles have reached a level of burnout at some point, because you just can’t keep pushing hard, pushing hard, and meeting resistance. Something has to break at some point. How do you manage that stress, and what can be fairly draining energy-wise? You can put all that effort in, and then a decision gets made: the board’s decided we’re not going to go in that direction. Now you’ve got to communicate that to your people, and you’re feeling like, oh God, I’ve let them down, I’ve got no credibility with them now, where’s the trust gone? All of that is really energy-draining. How do you keep yourself energetic and focused, and overcome those challenges?

Sean O’Malley
Yeah, absolutely. That is a real challenge. That’s an absolute challenge that comes with the role, I think. I’m lucky: I’m more optimistic than pessimistic. Some people say maybe a little bit too much, but more optimistic than pessimistic is my natural bias. I do feel a real, strong accountability for my people. That’s something that, for me, is a super important part of leadership: I do feel accountable for my people, and for helping my people grow and succeed. So that aspect is super important to me. I think finding personal ways to develop and enhance that resilience is super important. I think about earlier in my career, some of those setbacks, and I had them in big organisations as well as in smaller organisations. Some of those setbacks are challenging to overcome, but finding ways to build and then sustain that resilience is important.

I think what you do with yourself outside of your corporate life is super important, in whatever way that is: whatever ways outside of the office, whatever that means for your personal health, whatever that means in family. For me, those things are really important. That balance is super important, and having outlets outside of this is important. But this is a big part of our life. I was lucky enough to work for a while with Gail Kelly, when she was CEO of Westpac, a fantastic leader, and Gail often talked about work-life balance: for her, this differentiation between work and life didn’t make sense. And I remember, as a younger exec, trying to understand more about what that meant. But actually, work-life balance… it’s all work, it’s all life, and how work fits into that life. That’s the sort of belief system that I use: how does it fit into your life? It’s not like there’s work and then there’s life; they’re actually very intertwined. For me, that’s absolutely about having those continual ways outside of work. I think it’s also about people: people and leaders outside of the organisation who can help when those things get really tough as well. So the mentors, the coaches, but also the team environment that helps, because we all go through ups and downs. There are times when things are great, and there are times when things are tough, and ensuring that we’ve got ways to talk about that openly and get support from people is really important.

Dexter Cousins
I love that bit about work-life balance. We’ve tried to muck around with the term and say it’s work-life integration, but I think it’s something that’s much deeper than that. If I look at the levels of unfulfilment, and, as we talked about earlier, the nature of work, I think one of the things that people really have to start to take accountability for is their own fulfilment and their own development, and stop outsourcing that to an employer. I think the reality is it’s our responsibility to find, within our work, that creative outlet, or whatever it is that helps us express who we are as people. And the people that I’ve met who I think have really gone far in their careers have found that it’s not just one thing, right? It’s lots of things. Whether it’s a founder or an exec of a bank, what they’ve found is: hey, these are the things that really give me energy, that I know I’m really great at, and this is the stuff that I’m not so good at, and I can either delegate it, or find a system or process to crunch through that work so it doesn’t drain all my energy. And I think that’s the secret to getting that fulfilment piece and the work-life balance.

Sean O’Malley
I completely agree with you on a couple of those things. We often say that sometimes we can get stuck in organisations or in roles where we know this is not actually the right role, this is not the right organisation, but people stay there. And I’ve counselled and coached as many people to say, actually, it’s time for a change. It’s time… it’s going to be better to change the culture and the environment, rather than just getting out of the environment. Sometimes you’ve got to be pragmatic about what you can do, and really clear about what maybe you can’t. For me, I’m a goal chaser. I love sticking a flag on the hill and then using that as a rallying cry. And it’s got to be a big flag, and it’s got to be on a big hill. If it’s not a big flag on a big hill, then for me that’s less enticing and less motivating. It does mean you might not get there, but you’re going to get a whole eight further than if you set small goals.

And the other thing, I think you’re absolutely right: all of us have to take our own personal accountability for our development, especially now. The nature of work is changing, the nature of technology is changing, the nature of our markets is changing, and if you’re standing still, you’re going backwards. So each of us has a personal accountability, I think, to be continually curious, continually looking at how I develop. What are the things that I need to be working on? What are the things that were good for me 10 years ago, or 5 years ago, or 3 years ago, but aren’t the things that are going to help me in a year’s time or two years’ time? I’m absolutely a huge believer in that. It’s our personal accountability. Organisations often help, and you just have to look around at the resources that organisations often provide, especially larger ones. Equally, there are so many ways in which we can all contribute to our development, but we’ve got to take some personal accountability for it.

Dexter Cousins
It’s one of the five criteria that we look for when we’re assessing talent: that propensity to learn.

Sean O’Malley
Yes.

Dexter Cousins
And I think it’s a critical skill now.

Sean O’Malley
Yeah, absolutely. I certainly agree with that one. And, as I mentioned, there’s a word we’re talking about a lot, a characteristic I’ve always been enamoured with: curiosity. For people who are curious, that curiosity trait, I think, is a real indicator of performance.

Dexter Cousins
Well, Sean, it’s been fantastic to chat. We’re coming up to a wrap, but before we do: what can we expect from AMP Bank in 2025?

Sean O’Malley
Yeah, absolutely. So we are very close to launching our new digital proposition for small business and personal banking, and I’m super excited about that. But that’s only the beginning. What we’ll launch with in February is only the beginning. What you can expect from us is a continuation of new propositions and new capabilities. And, really excitingly, we’ll be looking for new people to join us on that crusade, and we’ll also be looking for new partners to join us as we build that out. So it’s going to be a year of rapid delivery for us. I feel like I’ve been talking about this for long enough, and I’m really excited to get it out there in the public, and then really build and build and build and evolve.

Dexter Cousins
Brilliant. We get some amazing talent listening to this show. If anybody’s interested in finding out more about careers at AMP Bank, where’s the best place for them to go?

Sean O’Malley
Yeah, so check us out on amp.com.au. There’s a dedicated careers tab there. A whole new website actually just went live, so check us out at amp.com.au, and check out under talent.

Dexter Cousins
Now, we also get a load of founders who could be building propositions, or have propositions, that could be the ideal partner for you.

Sean O’Malley
Absolutely.

Dexter Cousins
How would they reach out or connect with you?

Sean O’Malley
Yep. So I get a lot of offers through LinkedIn, so reach out to me and connect with me on LinkedIn, and then we’ll put you in touch with the right people.

Dexter Cousins
Brilliant. Thanks for joining me, Sean.

Sean O’Malley
Pleasure. Thanks, Dex.

Dexter Cousins
As always, folks, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. If you’re coming back, thanks so much for your support, and if you’re new to the show, make sure you give us a follow, and subscribe if you’re watching on YouTube. And if you’re listening on audio, make sure to follow us so you get updated on all the latest episodes. Until the next show, keep well.

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