FinTechNZ News Update

A big thank you to those who attended our recent FinTechNZ Connect event series in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland. If you missed our winter event series, read the highlights and key learnings here.

These events are successful because of you! A key to our success is the opportunity for members to meet, make connections, share information, experiences and opportunities. A special mention goes to the FMA for their contribution at our winter event series. Hearing directly from the regulator and the ability for our members to engage directly is highly valuable. Naturally, we value your feedback and will soon distribute a brief survey to learn more about what you like about our events, what we could be doing better or differently. Please tell us what you would like to hear more about, suggest future speakers and topics. We are committed to making these events as useful as possible for you, our members.

Upcoming events

Mark your diary for our upcoming FinTechNZ Connect events in September and October. During our spring event series in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch we will focus on Insurance and InsurTech. Looking forward to 2018, our plan is to explore finance and investment technologies, payments and e-commerce, Blockchain and cryptocurrency.

In November, we see the return of the national FinTech conference Finnotec 2017. Early bird tickets are on sale now. This event is our key industry conference for the year and this year sees an increase in international speakers attending to share their experiences. Come and join a wide variety of thought-leaders and fintech startup founders to hear the latest fintech developments.

Singapore FinTech Memorandum of Understanding

I am excited to announce that FinTechNZ has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Singapore FinTech Association (SFA), enabling a commitment to a closer working relationship for our two organisations and communities. This is the first arrangement of its kind for our local fintech sector. I would like to recognise the hard work of Core Working Group Member Paul Fulljames in bringing this first of many international relationships to fruition.

Our first initiative with SFA is to arrange a Kiwi delegation to attend the Singapore FinTech Festival 2017 in November. If you are interested in being involved, please reply to this email with your contact details. The Festival also hosts the world’s largest Investor Summit – “Deal Day”, bringing together more than 1000 startups and 400 investors with 5 billion worth of anticipated funding available. Nominations of FinTechs and Investors should submit their interest.

General Manager Announcement

Since our launch in February, we currently have nearly 70 founding members, rapidly approaching our goal of 100. This month we welcome James Brown who has been appointed as FinTechNZ’s General Manager. It is exciting that our community has gathered enough momentum and critical mass that we are able to have James join the team and focus on our growth and advancement.

Growing our community

We’d love your help to grow our community and there a number of ways you can do this. Please encourage your peers to become members, attend our events and keep updated on everything FinTechNZ. To hear our latest news join our LinkedIn Group and follow us on Facebook.

I look forward to connecting with you again soon.

Kind regards

Mitchell Pham

FinTechNZ Chair