Finnies 2021 Up

Up win Finnies 2021 prestigous People's Choice Award for Fintech of the year presented by Tier One People.

Congrats to Dom Pym and the team at Up for winning this year's People's Choice award. Sponsored by Tier One People this award is decided by the public based on votes and unique podcast listens.

Each finalist is featured in their own Fintech Chatter Podcast episode to talk through the last 12 months and what makes them worthy winners.

This is the only podcast episode we've managed to record in person this year. Recorded live at Intersekt 2021 there's real energy in this episode and it's definitely one of our favourites.

Up is a business Tier One People has supported from before day one.

The award comes in the week Up celebrates the third anniversary of their official launch. Tier One people founder, Dexter Cousins was at that launch and he described Up Co-Founder Dom Pym as the Steve Jobs of Australian banking.

It's been a huge year for Up, with the acquisition from Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, a new CEO in ex-Square employee Xavier Shay and hitting over 400,000 customers.

Have a listen to the interview with Dom and I'm sure you'll agree they are worthy winners. Dom and the team have certainly won the hearts of the public and Fintech community.

Finnies 2021 WeMoney

WeMoney Winners of People's Choice Emerging Fintech of the year.

Wednesday 13th October 2021 Fintech Australia held their Gala awards event, The Finnies.

Now in its fifth year, The Finnies were more competitive than ever. With 21 awards up for grabs as well as the new 'hall of fame' awards, the Australian Fintech community gathered over Youtube to watch an entertaining and well-produced awards ceremony.

Tier One People once again sponsored the People's Choice awards with two trophies, Emerging Fintech and Fintech of the year up for grabs.

The winners are decided by a public vote. Each finalist is interviewed on Fintech Chatter Podcast with unique downloads counting towards the vote count.

And from a very, very competitive field we are delighted to announce the winners of Emerging Fintech as WeMoney.

Take a listen to our interview with Co-Founder and CEO Dan Jovevski. Congrats to Dan and the team from the Tier One People team for a fantastic first 12 months in operation.

95: TrueLayer, Brenton Charnley

It's episode 95 of Fintech Chatter Podcast with guest Brenton Charnley, Aus/New Zealand CEO for TrueLayer.

Through their open banking platform, Truelayer enables Fintech like Revolut, Stake and Monzo to build better financial experiences

TrueLayer officially launched in Australia last week, announcing a funding round led by Tiger and Stripe which now gives them Unicorn status.

Dexter Cousins chats to Brenton about the plans for Australia, the key differences between open banking and Australia’s CDR and what the latest funding round means for TrueLayer globally.

Dexter digs deeper into the TrueLayer culture and Brenton shares some great insights on hiring and building teams for startups.

Brenton also gives outstanding advice for anyone looking to break into Fintech, sharing his thoughts on the qualities leaders look for and how to get their attention.

Reach out to Brenton on LinkedIn

Find out more about TrueLayer

94: Senator Andrew Bragg

In episode 94 of Fintech Chatter Podcast Dexter Cousins is joined by Senator Andrew Bragg.

In his first term as an elected official, Senator Bragg was appointed Chair of the Senate Inquiry into Fintech

As Senator Braggs 18 months in the role comes to a close we look back on his time in Fintech.

The inquiry, one of the first in the world, has been a great success leading to real change. Many recommendations in the report were actioned at the last budget.

The way in which Fintech and Government have worked successfully together is a blueprint for the rest of the startup community in Aus.

Senator Braggs support for the industry during Covid-19, especially his pushing for job keeper saved hundreds of jobs.

He's a big believer in the strategic importance of Fintech and shares Tier One People's own mission of making Australia a world-class Fintech innovation hub. Senator Bragg continues to call out for increased competition, standing in our corner against the big banks and superannuation funds.

As his time in the role comes to an end, Senator Bragg has tabled a major discussion on digital assets, believing that Australia can and should lead the way in Blockchain.

Tune in for what turns out to be a really enjoyable chat with a politician who gets stuff done and makes things happen.

To contact Senator Bragg - https://www.andrewbragg.com/

Buy Senator Braggs Book "Bad Egg - How To Fix Super"

93: BTC Markets, Caroline Bowler

In episode 93 of Fintech Chatter Podcast Dexter Cousins is joined by Caroline Bowler, CEO of BTC Markets,  Australia’s largest and most trusted cryptocurrency exchange.

BTC is Australian-owned and operated. With over 300,000 traders, and more than $16.5 billion traded on the BTC Markets platform.

Caroline joins me to talk about their partnership with Australian NeoBank - Volt Bank.  We dig into the debanking challenges facing Crypto exchanges in Australia and the opportunities we can expect to see in the future.

And no chat on crypto would be complete without delving into the world's of Defi and NFT's

You can connect with Caroline on LinkedIn or go to https://btcmarkets.net

A link to report is here Investor Study Report 2021-2022 | Crypto Investing Australia | BTC Markets

Fintech Insider Australia

Our friends at 11:FS approached us recently to help them put together a special show on Australian Fintech.

It was a thrill to finally be asked, having politely and persistently promoted Australian Fintech to David M. Brear, Simon Taylor and the 11:FS crew for four years!

And now it's here, the world's most listened-to Fintech podcast dedicating a whole episode to Australia.

Tune in as David M Brear, Simone Joyce Fintech Australia and Paypa Plane, Matt Baxby from Revolut and Dexter Cousins talk about the huge opportunities in Australia and how the nation is fast becoming a world-class Fintech hub.

92: World Nomads, Simon Monk

In episode 92 of Fintech Chatter Podcast Dexter Cousins is joined by a very special guest, Simon Monk co-founder of World Nomads, Australia’s first Insurtech.

In this new feature show, Dexter interviews a Fintech pioneer from a time before the word even existed.  Guests share their journey and how they launched, scaled and successfully exited a Fintech business when there were no iPhones, no Stripe, no Facebook, no Twitter and no AWS!

Travel has always been a big part of Simon’s life,  he’s been dreaming about what's over the horizon for as long as he can remember. 

Originally from the UK, he trained in design before getting involved in the very early days of the internet 

As an avid traveller, he ended up in Australia, where he founded World Nomads, an online travel insurance service for people who loved travelling and exploring.

After a successful sale of World Nomads to NIB in 2015, Simon has focussed his time on the energy and renewables sector.

Connect with Simon on LinkedIn

A big thank you for your support.

Tier One People has never been busier and we are super grateful for the calibre of clients and talent who continue to approach us after listening to the show.

If you want to show your support, you can subscribe, leave us a review or just tell your friends. It really helps us continue to provide high-quality content for free.

And if you’re a world-class fintech looking for tier-one people reach out to Dexter on Linkedin or email info@tieronepeople.com 

Matt Baxby of Revolut. His role as Global CEO

Tier One People helps Fintech companies hire leadership talent with the potential to make an impact.

One of those great hires is Matt Baxby, Australian CEO for Revolut. Matt shares his experience over the first 18 months. There are some great tips here for any Fintech founder looking to expand overseas. Or for country managers here in Australia looking to make their business a success.

Article courtsey of Matt Baxby on Linkedin

" You never know what’s around the corner. "

I joined Revolut in February 2020 as CEO of our Australian business.  The mission was clear. In the words of our founder Nik Storonsky while I was shadowing him in London during my first week: “Conquer your market.” I returned to Australia just before COVID hit, and translated those marching orders into four priorities: to build an A-grade team; set the foundation by getting the right licences in place; draw on Revolut’s extensive product catalogue to build and localise our offering in Australia; and then scale.  Having pivoted out of one of Australia’s incumbent banks, I was loving the latitude to build a business from scratch, draw great people to what we were doing and really put the foot down.

What I didn’t expect was the opportunity to step into a global role, working with our founders and local CEOs in each of Revolut's seven major markets to help build a global platform serving 16 million personal customers and half a million small businesses.

Someone working remotely in Brisbane was an unlikely candidate, but this is where I found myself in August 2020.

Go to LinkedIn to read the rest of the article

🎧 Listen to Matt on Fintech Chatter Podcast

91: 11:FS Foundry, Simon Taylor

In episode 91 of Fintech Chatter Podcast, Dexter Cousins is joined by Simon Taylor, Chief Product Officer of 11:FS Foundry.



Foundry is a revolutionary platform built by 11:FS that aims to become the operating System of Financial Services.

The Foundry platform enables any business to quickly offer embedded financial products, delivering on the premise that every business is a Fintech.

Simon also shares his insights on how the Fintech industry is shaping up globally and what he thinks of the Fintech scene down under.

About Simon.

Simon Taylor is the Co-Founder and Blockchain Practice Lead at 11:FS. Simon has been immersed in the technology of financial services for as long as he’s been working and is consistently voted one of the most influential people in Banking, Insurance and Fintech by banks, his peers and a number of industry bodies.

For more info go to https://11fs.com/products/11fs-foundry

And you can follow Simon on Twitter and LinkedIn


90: Chainlink Labs, Niki Ariyasinghe

In episode 90 of Fintech Chatter Dexter Cousins is joined by Niki Ariyasinghe,  Head of Business Development, Asia-Pacific at Chainlink Labs.

It's been almost 18 months since Niki was last on the show for our Blockchain Special

Chainlink is the industry standard oracle network for powering hybrid smart contracts. 

Managed by a global, decentralized community, Chainlink Labs currently secures billions of dollars in value for smart contracts across decentralized finance (DeFi), insurance, gaming, and other major sectors.

Niki shares his thoughts on Defi and how the technology is poised to bring a revolutionary change to banking and insurance.

There's a discussion on the actual application of the technology such as parametric insurance and their partnership with Marsh, the world's biggest insurance brokerage.

And Niki also shares Chainlink Labs 'remote first' policy on hiring and how it opens up a global talent pool.

For more info or to check out https://chainlinklabs.com/

Or reach out to Niki on LinkedIn

089: Salesforce, Stuart Ward

In episode 89 of Fintech Chatter Dexter Cousins is joined by Stuart Ward, Senior Director for Financial Services and Go-To-Market Strategy for Salesforce.

Salesforce is a global leader in CRM and SAAS. Their customer360 platform and financial services cloud is helping Australia's financial services industry get closer to their customers. 

With more than 2 decades of banking, tech and marketing experience Stuart joins me to share his insights on how Big Tech is playing an ever-growing role in Fintech.

Aussie Fintech Athena, Volt Bank, Frollo partner with Salesforce. And last year Salesforce made a strategic investment in open banking Fintech, Basiq.

Stuart shares his views on what he sees as the BIG opportunities coming from CDR.

For more information on Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/au/

Reach out to Stuart on LinkedIn

Mobiquity appoints Gus Quiroga as VP APAC.

Tier One People supports the launch of another world-class company in Australia.

Mobiquity, a full-service digital transformation enabler, announced its expansion into Asia-Pacific with the appointment of former Microsoft and IBM Watson Director, Gustavo Quiroga, as Vice President of Business Development Financial Services, APAC.

Tier One People were behind the hire, cementing our position as the go-to executive search company for world-class Fintech companies launching in the region.

Acting as advisors and executive search partners to Mobiquity, it took just four weeks to complete the search and appointment of the APAC Regional Director for financial services.

It takes Tier One People to build world-class Fintech companies.

Commenting on the announcement, Gustavo said: “I’m delighted to join Mobiquity and support the company’s rapid expansion across the Asia-Pacific region.

“I joined Mobiquity to develop, design and implement digital products and services that create meaningful experiences with customers. Giving customers a ‘Wow’ moment is what drives me, and I look forward to using my expertise to develop partnerships where we can achieve this every day.”

Matthew Williamson, Vice President of Global Financial Services, Mobiquity said: “Our appointment of Gustavo demonstrates Mobiquity’s commitment to hiring an A-list team of talent that has far-reaching industry expertise.

Expect additional announcements over the coming weeks as we help Mobiquity build a world-class team of tier-one people. Mobiquity has secured Adrian Nowell from Digizoo. Adrian was instrumental in building Aussie Smart Bank, 86 400 from idea to a pioneering digital bank in record time.

You can read the full article in Finextra

Looking to launch in Australia? Speak to the experts. We've helped Revolut, TrueLayer, 10x and many others launch successfully in Australia. - Contact Dexter Cousins for a confidential discussion.