Podcast

Soraya Alali on the Zip Co turnaround.

October 11, 2026 · Hosted by Dexter Cousins

Soraya Alali leads Zip Co in Australia and New Zealand, the Australian fintech founded in 2013 by Larry Diamond and Peter Gray. She joined Zip after more than 25 years in financial services, most recently at NAB and before that sixteen years at Commonwealth Bank, and has just presented her first full year of results as CEO of Zip ANZ.

In this episode of Fintech Chatter, Soraya explains the Zip turnaround, why ANZ customer numbers fell while cash earnings roughly doubled, how Zip is moving beyond finance into flexible credit and payments, and how the business went from AI experiments to live agents in twelve months.

The turnaround in one line.

The clearest way to read Zip’s year is a fall in customers next to a jump in earnings. ANZ active customers fell about 8 per cent to 1.88 million, while ANZ cash earnings roughly doubled. Soraya points to fewer, higher quality customers and much stronger unit economics, with spend per customer up 15 per cent, transactions per customer up 17 per cent, and margin expansion of more than 750 basis points.

Moving beyond finance.

Soraya describes a refreshed strategy that takes Zip past a single product into flexible credit for everyday spending and larger purchases, payments, and the recent launch of Zip Mobile with TPG Telecom. She frames the customer need plainly. “Australian consumers want flexibility, transparency and control.” The average Zip customer in Australia and New Zealand is 40 with a good credit history.

From a major bank to a fintech.

Soraya came to Zip from senior roles at NAB and Commonwealth Bank. She talks about keeping a founder culture as Zip grows, describing the shift as going from founder led to founder inspired, and about what changes when a bank leader moves into a listed fintech.

Culture that shows up in hiring.

Zip runs on four values, customer first, change the game, own it, and stronger together. Soraya says they are not a poster on the wall. “It isn’t words up on a poster. It’s onboarded right from when we recruit people, to promote people, to reward people.” That carries into who Zip hires, who it promotes, and how it rewards its people.

From AI experiments to live agents.

Twelve months ago AI at Zip was experimentation. Soraya describes live agents now working across the business, supported by an AI orchestration layer, governance and a close watch on token spend. A recent two-day hackathon drew almost 400 people onto the learner path.

Discipline, not chaos.

Soraya rejects the idea that a fintech has to be chaotic. “Fintech doesn’t mean chaos. It means disciplined execution, and continuing to deliver what we say.” Zip has guided to group cash EBTDA of about 340 million dollars in FY27, up around 26 per cent.

Chapters.

0:00 Introduction
1:10 Welcome Soraya Alali
1:48 The Zip story
2:36 Beyond a single product
4:05 Cost of living
5:33 First year results
7:16 Fewer customers more profit
8:35 Customers not users
11:50 Zip’s refreshed strategy
12:47 Choosing the next bet
13:52 Bank to fintech culture
16:40 AI at Zip
21:31 Keeping AI disciplined
23:41 Fronting the ASX results
24:38 The year ahead
25:10 Why bank hires leave
27:28 Resilience and discipline
28:50 Why join Zip
30:32 Close

Links from this episode.

Full transcript.

Lightly edited for readability. Filler words removed, wording otherwise unchanged.

Dexter Cousins
Hello and welcome to Fintech Chatter, the show where I connect with fintech leaders to talk about their secrets to success. I’m Dexter Cousins, your host and the founder of Tier One People, the executive search firm that for the past decade has been helping companies like today’s guest hire that 1% who redefine what’s possible. Today’s guest is Soraya Alali, the CEO of Zip ANZ. Soraya, welcome to your Fintech Chatter debut.

Soraya Alali
Thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to it.

Dexter Cousins
Maybe you could tell the listeners a little about Zip and what you do.

Soraya Alali
Zip is an Australian homegrown fintech, which I think is a really great story when it comes to innovation. It was founded by Peter Gray and Larry Diamond, our two founders, back in 2013. It’s a digital financial services company that has prided itself on delivering people-centred experiences, largely around flexible credit and payment options, and supporting not only the everyday consumer but also merchants. That’s one of the things that really makes Zip stand out from the rest.

Dexter Cousins
As you mentioned, it’s a longstanding fintech business and a real innovator, one of the proponents of buy now, pay later. That’s been through a number of iterations. What’s the journey of Zip now as a business, and where do you see yourselves as a company?

Soraya Alali
A misnomer is that we’re just a buy now, pay later. We provide flexible credit that stems not only from your everyday purchases but also the large, big items you want to buy. The business has actually evolved beyond just finance to give everyday consumers greater support. For example, we recently launched Zip Mobile, which every consumer has in some shape or form. Our key focus has been about unlocking financial potential. We started with credit, we’ve moved into payments, and we’re now coming into more solutions over time that tap into that customer need.

Dexter Cousins
There’s been a lot of unfair stigma attached to that whole category. If I go back to my childhood, we grew up in a single-parent family and didn’t have much. I remember my mum saving for about three years to buy a video recorder, and I think, wow, my kids would never have to go through that. I consider myself middle class now and I’m very grateful for it. But with the cost of living, I feel like I’m back in those days when my mum was saving three years for a video recorder. What has that change in the economy meant for Zip as a business, for its customers, and for the opportunity ahead of you?

Soraya Alali
It’s a really important question, and I’ll talk about it in the Australian context, the Australian consumer, which I’m obviously very focused on. What we’re finding is that the Australian consumer is concerned about the cost of living. The two things front of mind are that they’re seeking value, so we’re seeing them flock to discounts and offers, and they’re very resilient, but very conscious and deliberate in the way they purchase. What we’re also seeing is more and more customers using flexible credit offers like Zip to help with cash flow smoothing. The average age of an ANZ Zip customer is 40, with a good credit history, but they just want the flexibility to manage their everyday, whether that’s groceries, insurance or utilities, and also to unlock their potential around getting solar panels or dealing with a renovation. Australian consumers want flexibility, transparency and control, and flexible credit and payment products like Zip really appeal to them because they can do that.

Dexter Cousins
I had a look through some of the results you posted, some fantastic numbers. Would you share with the audience a little about the results you’ve had this past 12 months?

Soraya Alali
Zip overall has had a fantastic 2026 from an ANZ perspective. It was my first 12 months in the chair, and I was very proud to present the ANZ results on behalf of our Zipsters, because it really is the collective effort of all of them. In 2026 we doubled our cash earnings contribution to the group, which was a defining year and a step change in ANZ performance. We expanded operating margin by 750 basis points. That was a combination of returning a very profitable business back into profitable growth, so we saw growth in revenue and particularly in receivables, and significant growth in customer engagement. Spend and transactions increased by 15 and 17%. On the merchant side of the flywheel, we onboarded 10% more merchants, and importantly merchants our customers shop at every day, the Iconic, Aldi, solar. We did all of that by maintaining the discipline we’ve shown in the past, disciplined credit management and disciplined operating leverage. Our real focus has been on profitable and sustainable growth, which has set us up well into 2027.

Dexter Cousins
I may have read the numbers wrong, but it appeared your customer numbers had actually reduced while your profits increased. Is that right?

Soraya Alali
Yes, that’s right, although the customer number is a very lagging indicator. We’re after profitable growth, and quality matters, so we make sure customers are getting the right products at the right time and that they’re transacting more than they ever were before. What doesn’t show up in the customer numbers is that we’re unlocking greater purchasing power for our customers. For those who aren’t familiar with our products, we’ve got Zip Pay and Zip Plus, whether you’re after a no-rate or low-rate product. A typical customer starts with a no-rate, lower-limit product, shows strong and ongoing repayment behaviour, and as their needs grow they often move into Zip Plus, which has higher limits. That purchasing power has been a big focus for 2026, and it’s driven a lot of our receivables growth. So we’ve got higher quality, more engaged, and importantly more satisfied customers, which shows up in our Net Promoter Score.

Dexter Cousins
What’s fascinating about that evolution is that if I think back to the early days, founders like Larry and Pete, everything was about getting people onto the platform, getting users. The mecca was to get to a million customers, and Zip’s now at nearly two million Australian customers?

Soraya Alali
Just shy, yes.

Dexter Cousins
It’s really interesting to hear the maturation of the industry. In that early stage it’s all about momentum. And as you said, the flywheel. You’re now at the point where it doesn’t just become about a mono product. You’ve got all these other things you can provide, but then the quality issue comes into play as well.

Soraya Alali
It’s a really good insight. Our big focus is customer engagement, and customer first is one of our strong values. Everyday consumers are who we serve, 10% of the Australian population today, and our focus is making sure they’re engaged, getting the best value, and that the relationship goes beyond episodic to enduring. Unlike many other offers in the market, we’re able to help them with their everyday. We’re seeing utilities, insurance and household everyday expenditure front and centre, but our bigger, non-discretionary items are seeing equal growth too, entertainment, solar, wellbeing. Australians, despite what’s happening in the macro environment, feel much more empowered and in control by having the flexibility to manage money their way. That was the insight the founders tapped into back in 2013, that traditional credit cards weren’t really addressing how everyday consumers wanted to manage their money. Flexibility, control and transparency was the original idea, and it’s permeated right through to today and into the future.

Dexter Cousins
The burning question everybody used to ask me was, what’s the difference between Afterpay and Zip, and why is Afterpay’s share price where it is and Zip’s where it is. At the time it wasn’t so much a criticism, just an observation, that Zip was building out a much broader category, whereas Afterpay was very much focused on the millennial and fashion market. It was brilliant, and how they executed was incredible. But now I look back at Zip’s approach, and the resilience the business has shown, particularly since 2022, when the cost of capital was increasing every month. For the business to survive that and come out the other side, it now makes sense, partnering with Bunnings, going into solar. At the time you think, are these distracting moves, but as a customer myself, with a solar battery, at my own house pretty much every weekend I’m at Bunnings. Now I go, yeah, the Zip strategy makes a lot of sense.

Soraya Alali
You would have heard me say every day and big moments. That’s language our customers use, that we help them with the every day and the big moments and give them that flexibility. Our refreshed strategy is about leveraging our Australian homegrown digital challenger roots, but moving beyond finance, because customers don’t really care about their finance. It’s about what they can unlock, the outcome rather than the input. We want to help them with flexibility and control, but also support them with their everyday expenses. At the moment that’s Zip Mobile, giving them a frictionless experience and a great deal, and we have ambitions to support more of that everyday cost burden and help them feel more empowered and get more value. We’re very excited about the direction.

Dexter Cousins
How do you keep discipline around that, and how do you get informed about which strategic bets to go to next?

Soraya Alali
If you think about 13 years, one of our key strengths is not only that we serve 10% of the Australian population, but that we also have 65,000 merchants as part of our two-sided flywheel. Through that we see what customers are interested in, how they’re purchasing, and their behaviour. There’s a lot of data and insight that informs what’s front of mind for the everyday consumer and for our merchants, what appeals and where they’re spending money. We take a very people-centred, customer-centred approach to make sure it’s an intuitive, integrated experience that adds value in a way that doesn’t exist in the market. They’re the principles we think about in our design, prioritisation and execution.

Dexter Cousins
I want to talk about the culture of the business now. You’re 13 years old, so it’s not the scrappy startup anymore. Your background is big four banks, and our data shows those two backgrounds tend not to work out in many instances. They do in some, this being one of them. I was curious to get your perspective on the differences between the two cultures, and how you found the transition from a bank into a business like Zip.

Soraya Alali
There are a lot of firms and financial institutions that have a focus on customer and a focus on technology. My background has been about the two coming together. As I walked into Zip, we live and breathe being a fintech, the customer obsession, and we live and breathe innovation and technology. You hear it and you see it, but when you arrive, it’s in the DNA of every single Zipster. We bleed purple. Some of the most sought-after items are the Zip merchandise, because there’s so much pride in what Zip stands for. It’s so embedded, and it’s endured from what our founders created, to where we are now in our transition from founder led to founder inspired. Our culture is embedded around our values, which are customer first, change the game, own it, and stronger together, and that has endured across both markets. The purpose, the values, the culture and the pride are the hallmarks. It isn’t words up on a poster. It’s onboarded right from when we recruit people, to promote people, to reward people, so it’s embedded in our DNA. A great example is that we recently had a two-day hackathon. People who sit on the phones, people in product, people in technology came together, and within 48 hours there were live prototypes in a sandbox environment, all solving towards a common strategic goal. That’s super unique, and it shows it’s part of our DNA.

Dexter Cousins
We were both at Intersekt a couple of weeks back. I’ve been there every year since 2018, and the event we’ve just had was probably the best one, certainly since 2021. The reason for me was that there were so many CEOs there who hadn’t been present for a number of years. My sense is that they were there because everybody is looking for answers around what’s going on with AI. How do we implement it in the business? How do we implement it in the platform? How do we get our team to use it? What are the risks, what about fraud, what about agentic commerce? There are so many questions. Until very recently the thing that kept CEOs awake at night was, is what we’re building today relevant in 12 months? Now it’s, is what we’re building today relevant in one month? I wanted to understand how you’re seeing AI here at Zip, how it’s changing the way you work, how it’s changing the platform and the way you engage with customers, and where you see things heading.

Soraya Alali
AI is a core part of our strategy and ways of working, but it’s been a journey. Twelve months ago it was all about experimentation. Now it’s not experimentation. We’ve got live agents working side by side, agentic experiences right through the business. We think about AI across three areas, AI-powered process, AI-powered products and AI-powered people. We started by empowering our Zipsters, AI fluency, AI education and access to the tools, but making sure we do that responsibly and governed. A large part of our transformation over the last few months has been AI-empowered process, connecting all our workflows to provide governed, automated, responsible processes that make our Zipsters’ lives easier as well as our customers’ lives easier. We’re also now building new products and experiences around our AI product strategy. Today we have what we call an AI orchestration layer, a capability that lets us build agents and make sure we can control and govern them. Those agents work through anything from merchant onboarding to fraud detection and underwriting, but we always make sure we have a human in the loop as required. Organisations will be left behind if they’re not embracing this, but we’ve tried to tackle it across people first, then process, then product, and we’ve also created space to see the art of the possible, to ensure adoption and to do it in a considered way. An example is taking two days out of the business for the entire organisation to do this, the hackathon I mentioned. Our super adopters went down the hack path and built prototypes in a sandbox within 48 hours. For the rest of our Zipsters, we had almost 400 participants take the learner path, and we could customise that path from junior right through to very senior. It’s very much led from the top, at group and senior leadership level and all the way down, so we’re role modelling that this is the way we operate as AI native. It’s no longer years or months, we’re talking about weeks. We’re seeing this development live at the moment.

Dexter Cousins
When I started the business, most of my customers were major banks setting up innovation arms, saying they wanted to operate like a fintech and bring startup culture into the bank. It’s really difficult to do that, and I think they all found out the hard way. The challenge now is that you’re able to innovate. The limitation on a business like Zip used to be, we don’t have the resources or the capital to test these 10 bets, we’ve got to pick one, and you’d spend six months and find out it wasn’t the right bet. Now you can do that in two days and run all 10 bets. How are you getting discipline around it, so that you’re experimenting but not going crazy on token spend, in a world where the opportunities are almost limitless?

Soraya Alali
There are three ways. The first is our strategy and North Star, and our strategic pillars, which we spend a lot of time embedding, the why and the what, with our Zipsters. If everyone is working towards a common North Star in a common way, you anchor the organisation to solve for the right problems. We saw this come to life in the last two days of our hackathon, where we were all solving the same strategic problems within that sphere. So we’re still allowing freedom for innovation but anchoring towards where we want to go. The second thing, through our ZAI orchestration layer, is that we monitor and control the use of tokens by making sure each role has the right access to the right AI tools for the right purpose. We’ve got the governance to make sure it’s not a free for all, but fit for purpose for the role and the function, with oversight to manage the cost and the return on that investment. The final thing is that through the ZAI platform we’ve put controls in place so that agents or custom GPTs that are created only access the data and the insight they should. We’ve built the framework and infrastructure to make sure it’s controlled, tested and governed, and we use the same framework across the US and Australia. We’ve given teams space, but we’ve also made sure we’ve got a North Star we’re all galvanising against. We’re all learning as we go, but it’s front of mind for our strategy, my capability and our commitment.

Dexter Cousins
A slightly personal question. You’re now CEO of an ASX-listed business, so you had to front up the numbers for the Australian business. What was that experience like?

Soraya Alali
It was thrilling, because I had such immense pride in showing the art of the possible in just the first 12 months. It was also humbling, because it was a collective effort of our Zipsters that allowed us to achieve that outcome. We also announced a refreshed strategy, so it was nice to talk not only to the historical performance but also to our ambition and intent. We’ve put it up on a pedestal, and now we’re really focused on executing. What a great experience, a great honour and great pride.

Dexter Cousins
What do you see as the challenges ahead for the next 12 months?

Soraya Alali
We’ve got a very strong North Star and a resilient customer and merchant base. Our biggest focus is executing excellently in a pretty tumultuous macro and geopolitical environment. What I look for from myself, my leaders and others is the resilience and agility to respond to those factors and to what our customers and merchants want. The big thing is to execute excellently on the agenda ahead.

Dexter Cousins
A stat we have is that 90% of people who move from big banks into scale-up fintech businesses leave within the first six months. It’s not that they’re bad people or not good at their job. They just haven’t experienced what it’s like. The biggest issue we see is context switching. You go from being in your domain, where you’re comfortable and everything is within your bandwidth, to being thrown into chaos. One minute you’re talking to the CTO about a technology issue, then risk, then investors, then chief product, then there’s a client issue, then a fraud issue, and that’s all in the first three hours of the day. It just goes through that cycle, and it’s mentally draining. You have to be there in the moment in a completely different mode and mindset. That’s the thing we’ve recognised as the biggest barrier to people being able to succeed and flourish.

Soraya Alali
Being in a fintech requires you to be innovative, resourceful and really passionate about the customer, which for us is the everyday Australian as well as our merchants. It requires you to be resilient, because it’s not status quo. The Zipsters we attract are those who really want to make a difference, who are very purpose-led and customer-led, who have the resilience to find the art of the possible, who are judicious about where their time and focus is spent, and who celebrate the failures as well as the successes and keep learning. Those are the things that attract and retain people, along with the ability to see the immediacy of the impact you have because you’re close to it. For many people that gives great satisfaction, but it’s not for everyone.

Dexter Cousins
You talked about culture not just being words. I don’t want to dwell on the tough times of 2022 and 2023, but sitting here in Zip’s offices, it would have seemed a miracle just for the business to still be here, let alone to be getting the numbers it’s getting now. You’ve used the word resilience a number of times, and I think that’s living proof that the culture isn’t just words on the wall but lived values every moment, every day.

Soraya Alali
It absolutely is. Our values are enduring, and the standards set by our founders are enduring. Pete sits next to me, our founder, and I still learn a lot from him. I don’t think it’s just resilience. Resilience is one thing, but discipline too. Fintech doesn’t mean chaos. It means disciplined execution, and continuing to deliver what we say, both to our Zipsters and to the market. That’s been the hallmark at each stage. I’d say resilience, discipline, but absolutely purpose-led. Unlocking financial potential was one of the reasons I joined, and that clear purpose is pretty incredible.

Dexter Cousins
We get a lot of fintech professionals listening who could be a great hire for Zip. If they’re interested in careers, where’s the best place for them to head, and what are the key reasons someone would want to work at Zip?

Soraya Alali
We’ve got a great careers site on our website, and one of the best talent teams, who are award winning. We post a lot of our opportunities on LinkedIn, so feel free to connect with me or my leaders. Why would you join Zip? The Zip turnaround story is significant, and we’ve proven we have the performance and the ambition to continue to drive growth. We do this with a culture of Zipsters that has endured right through our 13 years. People say Zip is an amazing place to work, where you have the ability to reimagine the art of the possible and are empowered to do so. For many, this transition is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and there aren’t many companies that tick all those boxes. If you’re ready to work hard, roll your sleeves up, be innovative, be judicious and be in the detail, you’d be able to get your hands dirty, create, work with fantastic people, achieve great outcomes and learn as you go.

Dexter Cousins
It’s been fantastic to catch up. Thank you for Zip finally being on the show. You probably couldn’t have picked a better moment, with the results you’ve got and the trajectory you’re now on. If anybody wants to find out more about the Zip products, where’s the best place to head?

Soraya Alali
We’re everywhere at the moment. I don’t know if you’ve seen our new brand campaign. For the first time in almost five years we’re out with a new one, It pays to Zip. You’ll see some of that out there, but of course we’ve got our website, and we’re on social. I’m consistently posting on LinkedIn, as is a lot of my team. Hopefully you’ll see us everywhere.

Dexter Cousins
As always, folks, you can catch up with me on LinkedIn and Twitter. If you’re new to the show, make sure you follow us wherever you watch or listen to podcasts, and give us a like and subscribe. It really helps me get great guests like Soraya onto the show. If you’re coming back, thank you so much for your support, it really does mean a lot. Until the next episode, keep well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrGkYFKOEuE

← All episodes