Australia on the cusp of ‘digital greatness’

AUSTRALIA could soon become the FinTech Hub of Asia by eliminating regulatory red tape that has previously held the nation’s visionary start-up companies back, Tyro CEO Jost Stollmann said today.

Under changes announced by the Australian Government, start-up companies can now test and evolve their business models with customers in a regulatory ‘sandbox,’ without first having to obtain a financial services licence.

The development will help encourage some of Australia’s best and brightest bankers to leave the comfort of the ‘big four’ banks and venture out on their own with disruptive new ideas.

“Australia’s financial services sector is the largest contributor to the national economy, providing about $140 billion to GDP last year, and employing 450,000 people,” Mr Stollmann said.

“The Australian Government’s package of measures will help unleash a new generation of entrepreneurs and investors who want to make everything we do quicker, easier and more productive.

“FinTech investment around the world reached an estimated $30 billion, a jump of about seven-fold in only three years.

“Australia needs to make itself FinTech friendly if it wants to set itself up for the next generation of economic growth.

“If it does, Australia could become the FinTech Hub of Asia, servicing a market of more than three billion people, including a rampant Chinese economy.”

At the recent World Economic Forum it was noted that 90 per cent of the data we use today has been created in the past two years.

Mr Stollmann said that FinTech was disrupting banking so quickly it was possible that one of Australia’s big four banks may no longer exist in a generation.

“Australia is now creating an eco-system of FinTech start-up companies that are working together to provide a 21st century suite of banking services for customers and businesses,” he said.

“What that means is that the old and slow banks may be replaced by 100 smaller organisations working together.

“It is possible that within 20 years one of the current big four banks will no longer be with us. The only question is, which one will it be?”

While most banks have been reluctant to speak publicly about the challenges posed by FinTechs, Commonwealth Bank CEO Ian Narev told a gathering at The Centre for Independent Studies earlier this month that his organisation would be ‘toast’ within 10 years if it didn’t innovate.

Mr Narev refuted the notion that innovation and technology was only the domain of the start-up, describing Commonwealth Bank as the “big dog sleeping on the porch”.

Tyro Payments is Australia’s only technology company with a banking licence. It works collaboratively with other tech companies to provide end-to-end banking solutions for Australia’s 2.1 million small and medium sized businesses.

Early last year, Tyro took this a step further by opening Australia’s first FinTech Hub, designed to foster new ideas and help Australian entrepreneurs build their dreams.

“FinTech is going to revolutionise how consumers and businesses interact in the future,” Mr Stollmann said.

“But individual FinTech companies can’t thrive in an analogue world, we need to create a digital ecosystem for new ideas to grow and prosper.

“For this reason, Tyro created the Tyro FinTech Hub in early 2015 at 155 Clarence St, Sydney, as Australia’s first dedicated space for fintech startups.”

Mr Stollmann sits on the Federal Government’s FinTech Advisory Group that advises the government on how to improve Australia’s international competitiveness in the digital economy.

About Tyro Fintech Hub

The Tyro Fintech Hub is Australia’s first hub for financial technology entrepreneurs in Sydney. Opened in February 2015, the Tyro Fintech Hub supports fintech startups and high growth companies with co-working space, mentoring, banking access, and a program to co-develop open APIs. The Tyro Fintech Hub is also host to accelerators, conferences, hackathons, meetups and programs to build Australia’s burgeoning fintech ecosystem. For more information, visit www.tyrofintechhub.com.

About Tyro Payments

Tyro is Australia’s EFTPOS banking institution and is the first new entrant into the banking business in more than 18 years. Tyro holds an authority under the Banking Act to carry on a banking business as an Australian Deposit Taking Institution (ADI) and operates under the supervision of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). Tyro provides credit, debit, eftpos card acquiring, Medicare and private health fund claiming and rebating services as well as a transaction and deposit account integrated with Xero cloud accounting. Tyro takes money on deposit and is about to launch its first lending product. For more information, visit www.tyro.com.

Need to know more?

For more about this news story please contact:
Monica Appleby, Head of Corporate Communications on 0466 598 946 or mappleby@tyro.com
Sophie Cotterill, Corporate Communications Manager on 0414 960 292 or scotterill@tyro.com