International fintech entrepreneurs are watching the local financial technology sector closely and warn Australia may not be prepared for the new world of banking just around the corner.
Next February, Australia’s “consumer data right” will be put into action when banks will be required to share customer information on a range of products including mortgages and transaction accounts.
Founders and executives from Europe and the United Kingdom, where open banking is already seeing customer data freely flowing from large financial institutions to smaller fintechs, said the opportunities presented were significant. To realise these, Australian businesses will need to negotiate questions of trust, collaboration and security.
“There aren’t many people that have been given an opportunity to be on that sort of ride where the sky is the limit… the market is right, the time is right,” says business development director of Swedish fintech cloud provider, Tink, Gwen Sandberg.
Tink offers tools for companies to build fintech products and counts the likes of Paypal among its clients. It raised €56 million ($62 million) earlier this year.
Tink is not planning on launching in the Australian market anytime soon, though it is watching it closely.
In Australia for Melbourne’s Intersekt fintech conference last week, Sandberg warned the path to progress when banking data is opened up is not necessarily smooth sailing.
