FinTech is a fascinating industry that deals in four main areas: AI, Blockchain, Cloud Computing, and Big Data. These areas are commonly referred to as ABCD (the D is for Data) and it's a sector that's projected to do very well in the coming years.
As with any industry with a bright future, there's a lot of interest from people looking to change jobs, start their careers, or even pick what they'll study at university.
If you're thinking about FinTech, here are a few reasons it's worth your while and some of the biggest FinTech companies and businesses in Australia, which are always a good place to start looking for jobs.
Reasons to Work in FinTech
Just in case you need convincing, there are plenty of reasons to work in FinTech. For one, it's an industry that's constantly changing, has a healthy start-up culture, and is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sectors in the future.
In terms of job security and your career, certain roles, such as blockchain developer, have 10 positions for every professional and there are lots of ways to progress, develop new skills, and increase your earning potential.
FinTech businesses tend to be very successful and that success usually translates to better salaries for those who work at them. As you'll need a decent education for a lot of the roles, they also pay the premium that comes with advanced degrees and good qualifications.
Sydney is the home of the FinTech sector in Australia and there's a lot of investment and capital around digital payment solutions, banking and financial technology, and financial products making use of blockchain technology.
Put simply, it's a good industry to be in with good job prospects and good salaries so let's see where you can enjoy these benefits by looking at some of the FinTech companies in Australia and what they do.
Afterpay
Afterpay is one of Australia's biggest FinTech companies. It was founded in 2014 and is now operating in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Afterpay does a few things, but it's most famous for its core “pay later” service, which makes sense given the company's name. Basically, when a customer buys something with Afterpay, they can split the cost into four equal payments to be paid every two weeks. They won't pay any interest on this, but there are late payment fees.
Afterpay takes a cut of the amount from the business or vendor and earns its money through this and the fees it charges on late payments. For customers, it allows them to afford something they mightn't have been able to buy today and for businesses, it helps them get customers that would have otherwise left without buying anything.
Airwallex
Airwallex is one of the biggest tech companies in Australia. Unlike a lot of the other companies listed here, it's not in Australia's FinTech capital, Sydney. Instead, Airwallex was founded in Melbourne in 2015 and is still headquartered there.
In 2019, the company expanded internationally and now operates in over 130 countries. It has also shifted from foreign exchange services to focus more on a broader range of banking services including payment processing, bank accounts, borderless cards, and its proprietary banking network utilising machine learning technology and big data.
Block Earner
Block Earner acts as a portal between traditional finance and the blockchain. It's another FinTech business based out of the FinTech capital, Sydney, and is relatively new to the FinTech space.
The company is looking to democratise the blockchain and make it fair, inclusive, and accessible to Australians through what it calls "better products built on blockchain".
This is a sector where technology and the solutions it can provide can play a huge role and Block Earner is betting on their service being better for everyone rather than just a select few.
Brighte
Brighte is an interesting FinTech as it offers financing services for Australians to switch to solar power.
Via their platform, users can get a quote from tradies for their solar power, be financed through Brighte, have their solar installed, and let Brighte make the payment to their tradies directly.
The financing through Brighte is 0% interest, but users are charged a weekly accounting fee, an establishing fee, and late fees. Brighte is also very clear on the fact that it's not a predatory lender and less than 1% of its revenue is from late fees.
This enables users to save money by financing solar sooner and, ultimately, save money on their electric bills.
CoinJar
CoinJar is a cryptocurrency exchange operating in Australia and the United Kingdom, though its cryptocurrency wallet can be used anywhere in the world.
This allows users to transfer funds from their bank account into their CoinJar account and buy and sell cryptocurrencies. They can also send and receive payments by exchanging CoinJar details with other users.
They also offer the CoinJar Card, which you can use for payments both online and in-store while earning points as part of their reward programme.
FrankieOne
FrankieOne is a FinTech company specialising in compliance and fraud prevention. While not considered one of the four core areas of FinTech, compliance is a huge part of things, especially when dealing with finance and huge amounts of sensitive data.
The goal of FrankieOne (also simply called Frankie) is to provide a single API and dashboard for users to manage things like KYC, AML, biometrics, and, in the future, transaction monitoring.
Frankie is even used by Afterpay, another one of the big FinTech players in Australia.
Lendi
If the name didn't give it away, Lendi is a platform for loans. More specifically, it's a platform for home loans. It uses technology to search various lenders and products and provide quickly with different solutions.
The company is headquartered in Sydney but has offices in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Manila. The company has won several FinTech awards and has been lauded as one of the “most innovative companies”, “businesses of tomorrow”, and “top startups”.
MoneyMe
MoneyMe is a financial services company that offers financial services like personal loans, credit cards, debt consolidation, and funding for property development.
The company, like a lot of FinTech companies, boasts savings for customers by being online-only and not having to pay for brick-and-mortar stores. It also boasts speed, ease of use, and an improved user experience to traditional lenders, something that a lot of FinTech companies focus heavily on.
SocietyOne
SocietyOne is another FinTech company offering financial services, but this one offers peer-to-peer lending.
For those unfamiliar with the practice, peer-to-peer lending (or P2P lending) is a way to lend money by matching lenders with borrowers. In the case of SocietyOne, they earn their money through fees for matching lenders and borrowers or performing credit checks on borrowers. This means that even after the fees, SocietyOne can offer lenders higher returns and borrowers lower interest rates, which is beneficial for everybody involved.
SocietyOne has been operating since 2011 and was Australia's first P2P lending company.
Stockspot
Stockspot is a fully paperless digital investment advice platform operating out of Sydney. It was founded in 2013 to help people in Australia avoid high fees for professional investment advice through the robo-advisor model, where financial advice is given based on mathematical models and algorithms designed by human financial investors.
Basically, users complete a questionnaire and Stockspot takes it from there to recommend investments based on the user's profile and through monitoring their portfolio.
Wisr
Wisr is a FinTech company offering loans and other financial services. It was previously known as DirectMoney until 2018 when it changed its name to Wisr. It was also the first of these types of companies to be publicly listed in the country. Like a lot of Australia's FinTech companies, Wisr is based in Sydney.
How to Get into FinTech Companies
Depending on the services a FinTech company offers, there are several ways to find a job or get your foot in the door. Firstly, most of the best FinTech jobs require at least an undergraduate degree in either finance, IT, or majors closely related to these two fields.
For a lot of roles, postgraduate qualifications are required, especially at higher levels and it's not uncommon for those on the tech side of things to be fluent in a few programming languages, especially if they're on the development side.
On the finance side, qualifications in business, finance, economics, marketing, etc. are all recommended, but there are even dedicated FinTech qualifications and majors or specialisations in FinTech available.
Undergraduate programmes are usually more general, but there are postgraduate options where students can specialise in FinTech-specific areas.
If you don't want to go to university or you don't want to go back, there are also shorter courses out there where you can study remotely or take classes for a few weeks.
With the right skills and attitude, finding work in FinTech shouldn't be too hard because the number of positions tends to dwarf the number of professionals out there. Blockchain development, for example, has an estimated 10 positions for every professional.
As you can see, there are plenty of interesting companies to look into, lots of good reasons to work in FinTech, and plenty of options for study. The industry is growing and is also very good for startups so don't be surprised to find even more companies than the ones we've listed here!
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