Building the payments infrastructure for B2B clients, bringing payments lessons from Europe into Australia, and helping Australian fintechs scale globally


Piers Cracknell has 20+ years’ experience in banking, payments & fintech across senior roles at NAB, CBA and global fintechs in Australia & the UK.
Piers was recently hired by European bank – Banking Circle – to set up their Australian operation, which is known locally as BC Payments Australia,

In this podcast we discuss:

1. What does BC Payments do in Australia?
2. Difference between Banking Circle (EU) and BC Payments Australia?
3. Building the payments infrastructure for customers
4. In Australia: Typical clients (B2B, acquirers, issuers), access to NPP, access to cross border payment schemes
5. What’s driving growth for BC Payments? Time and cost of settlement
6. Need for KYC and AML frameworks, understanding all types of risks (eg onboarding process, ongoing monitoring and supervision of client)
7. Experience in Europe – how is it relevant for Australia?
8. View on future of payments – domestic & cross border

From online application to money in the customer’s account in 36 minutes


From customer service (call centres), fraud detection & prevention, credit scoring & risk assessment, personalised banking, routine task automation, loan approvals, trading, to regulatory compliance and much more, Ai is changing finance, and fast.

In this episode Glen Frost interviews Julian Fayad on how his business, LoanOptions.Ai is changing unsecured lending, including how decisioning and payment is getting faster and faster – with the record at LoanOptions.Ai being 36 minutes for a Nurse to apply online, be and approved and received the money in their account in 36 mintues.

Loan Options AI is an AI powered loan matching and application platform to find you the best offers for car loans, personal loans, business loans, equipment loans and all other types of asset finance. LoanOptions.ai uses a combination of AI and dynamic logic to provide predictive pre-approval and accurate lender rates for hundreds of financial products from over 90 different banks and lenders. You can apply in under 5 minutes with no impact to your credit score.

Julian originally started in technology and has spent his entire career in asset finance, and Loan Options.ai is the culmination of everything he knows & using technology to make lending a better, faster and more efficient experience for the customer and the lender.

The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 55: Angelina Wu, CEO & Co-Founder, InvestmentMarkets

Investment Markets launches to sophisticated (self directed) investors with 500 products, plans for growth

Angelina Wu, CEO & Co-Founder, InvestmentMarkets

investmentmarkets.com.au is an independent, Australian investment platform. It is a two sided market place for self-directed high net worth investors and investment product issuers (from emerging companies to institutionally managed funds to fixed interest products) – essentially, anything that is ‘unitised’.

Their taglines are "Every kind of investment opportunity, all in one place " and "the Home of the Independent Investor"

Angelina’s background includes money markets, wealth advisory and media, including stints with Commonwealth Bank, UniSuper, Trustees Australian and Guangzhou TV in China, and the last 4.5 years with investment markets.

Angelina and her co-founder Chris Morton launched in March this year after years of testing and refining the service.

Learn more: www.investmentmarkets.com.au

Contact Angelina: angelina@investmentmarkets.com.au

Topics discussed include:

1. What led Angelina and her Co-Founder to create Investment Markets?

2. What problem they are solving? How does the platform work? What is the unique selling proposition?

3. Angelina describes a user journey

4. Who are the customers? Who are the product issuers?

5. What types of products/investments are available for investors?

6. How does matching work? There is no advice on financial products

7. What’s the business model? (product provider charged a flat fee)

8. Why Investment Markets have undertaken two years’ worth of research before launching

9. Future plans? New products, new markets?

10. What does success look like?