Fintech Chatter: Conversations with Fintech CEOs and Founders

Looking to scale your fintech leadership team? Start at tieronepeople.com After 7 years of asking we finally have Zip on the show! And it is definitely worth the wait. Zip Co is one of the jewels in the Australian fintech crown. But this show could so easily have not happened. In 2022 Zip's share price crashed, the cost of funding rose exponentially and their foundational BNPL model looked to...

Looking to scale your fintech leadership team? Start at tieronepeople.com Matt Barr is CEO of Send Payments, the Australian company that embeds cross-border FX into enterprise platforms including PEXA, BoardRoom and pay.com.au. He explains why those partners choose Send on compliance ahead of price, why the bigger FX markets sit offshore, and how 140 AI agents help a team of about 70 run the busin...

Looking to scale your fintech leadership team? Start at tieronepeople.com Xavier Shay is the CEO of Up, the Australian digital bank that reached a million customers on word of mouth and has been standalone profitable for the last twelve months. He joined as employee 27, was CTO before taking the top job, and explains why Up refused buy now pay later and why it does not try to win on features. Abou...

If you're looking to scale your executive leadership team - start at tieronepeople.com Welcome to our series recorded live from Interesekt/26. Dexter Cousins catches up with friends of the show at Australia's premiere Fintech event in Melbourne. Hello Clever CEO Caroline Tran gives Dexter Cousins and update of their remarkable growth across Asia, now processing over $2bn through their pa...

If you're looking to scale your executive leadership team - start at tieronepeople.com Welcome to our series recorded live from Interesekt/26. Dexter Cousins catches up with friends of the show at Australia's premiere Fintech event in Melbourne. Piers Cracknell CEO for Banking Circle Australia joins Dexter COusins to talk through their remarkable growth and success down under. Piers also...

If you're looking to scale your executive leadership team - start at tieronepeople.com Welcome to our series recorded live from Intersekt. Dexter Cousins catches up with friends of the show at Australia's premiere Fintech event in Melbourne. This chat features Ben Ford aka The Body of Fintech! Ben runs Mogoplus - AI powered credit decision making and has been at the forefront of CDR sinc...

Scaling your Fintech executive team? Start at tieronepeople.com Can Australian startups thrive under current policy? Shadow Minister Aaron Violi discusses the future of our tech sector. In this episode of FinTech Chatter, Dexter Cousins sits down with Aaron Violi, Federal Member for Casey and Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy, Science, Technology and Innovation. They examine how upcoming 202...

If you're scaling a fintech leadership team, start at tieronepeople.com   Karl Durrance is Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand at Stripe, the payments infrastructure company. Australia NZ is Stripes 3rd largest region globally, serving over one million customers and onboards 37,000 new local businesses every month.  In this episode, recorded live at Stripe Tour Sydney, Karl explai...

If you're building an executive team to scale your Fintech, start at tieronepeople.com Move Bank has become the first bank in the world to move its entire operation, technology, product, operations and compliance, onto Constantinople's platform.  In this episode Dexter Cousins is joined by Move Bank CEO Mike Currie and Constantinople co-CEOs Macgregor Duncan and Di Challenor.  They unpac...

If you're building a fintech leadership team, start at tieronepeople.com - executive search for Fintech. Sam Everington joined Starling Bank ten years ago as one of its first twenty employees. He led the build of the technology that has made Starling a Fintech giant - 4.5 million customers and a 9% share of UK business banking.   Mark Bernhardi leads Engine's growth across Australia and...

Looking to take your leadership team to the next level? Start at tieronepeople.com Peter Jones co-founded Nimo Industries with Leann Jones after living the core banking problem himself as a mutual bank CEO. Ten years ago he decided solve the problem for himself. Today, Nimo is a platform serving over 20 Australian banks and lenders, entirely bootstrapped.  In this episode of Fintech Chatter Dexter...

If you're scaling a fintech leadership team, start at tieronepeople.com Andy Taylor is the founder and CEO of ASX-listed Stakk Limited (ASX: SKK), an embedded trust and fraud prevention platform used by Chime, Robinhood, T-Mobile and H&R Block.  In this episode Andy breaks down Stakk's proposed US$63 million acquisition of document intelligence firm ParaScript, and how the deal turns...

If you're looking for AI Native leaders - start at www.tieronepeople.com Steve Hind is the co-founder and CEO of Lorikeet, an Australian AI startup that has raised more than $50 million USD to build AI concierges for high-regulation businesses in fintech, healthcare and energy. Lorikeet's customers include Airwallex, Linktree and Eucalyptus, the telehealth company recently acquired by Hi...

If you're scaling a fintech leadership team, start at tieronepeople.com Clayton Howes is the CEO of MONEYME (ASX: MME), an Australian non-bank lender that has originated over $5 billion in consumer credit and now manages a $1.9 billion loan book across personal loans, credit cards, and car finance. In this episode, Clayton walks through the full 13-year journey: bootstrapping from a desk-size...

Looking to upscale your fintech leadership team? Start at tieronepeople.com Michelle Bagnall is the CEO of BankFirst, a mutual bank with 92,000 members and $4.7 billion in assets that exists to serve nurses and teachers in Australia. In this episode she tells Dexter the origin story of a bank that started with $480 in a shoebox, explains why nobody at BankFirst gets paid a bonus, and makes the cas...

Fintech Chatter is presented by www.tieronepeople.com - executive search for Fintech. In this episode Dexter chats to Jamie Twiss CEO of Beforepay Group (ASX: B4P) and Carrington Labs. Jamie joined Beforepay pre-IPO, turning them from a startup into a profitable ASX-listed fintech writing 40,000 small loans a week with a 99% repayment rate.  Jamie and Dexter discuss why Beforepay is on a mission t...

Fred Schebesta co-founded Finder in 2006, grew it to five markets over 20 years, won a landmark Federal Court case against ASIC over the Finder Earn product, and is CEO of Finder Ventures.  In this episode of Fintech Chatter we cover where Finder Rewards is going, why stablecoins have quietly won the crypto race, what actually makes an employee irreplaceable in the AI age, and what Australia’s reg...

If you're scaling your fintech leadership team, start at tieronepeople.com Chris Brycki founded Stockspot in 2013 with no income, no office and no VC, and built it into Australia's largest automated investment service with $1.5 billion under management. In this episode, Chris and Dexter discuss what it actually takes to build an enduring fintech in Australia: staying lean, rejecting grow...

Brendan Malone, CEO of Raiz Invest, joins Dexter Cousins to mark 10 years since Raiz launched to Australian retail investors. From a joint venture with US micro-investing app Acorns in 2015, Raiz has grown to $2.1 billion in funds under management, over 330,000 active monthly users and over $5.5 billion invested for Australians.  What We Discuss How Raiz started as a joint venture with US app Acor...

David Hyman co-founded Lendi Group in 2013 and built it into Australia's largest non-bank mortgage platform with a $107 billion loan book, 5 million customers, and $350 million in annual revenue. He stepped down as CEO in January 2026 and within weeks was building his next company. In his fourth appearance on Fintech Chatter, David joins Dexter to talk about Mono AI, a platform business that...

Block Just Cut 4,000 Jobs. WiseTech Cut 2,000. Here's What To Do Next. Last week was a wake-up call for anyone working in fintech and tech in Australia. Block — the company behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay — cut more than 4,000 employees. That's nearly half the company, down from over 10,000 to just under 6,000. The stock surged 24% on the same day. Afterpay is still headquartered i...

🔥 We find the 1% who redefine what's possible - Executive search for fintech → https://tieronepeople.com Checkbox AI just raised $23M at $100M valuation serving enterprise customers SAP, PepsiCo, Telstra, and Woolworths. CEO Evan Wong shares the 9-year journey from bootstrapped startup to enterprise legal AI platform, competing against $5B+ valuation businesses like Harvey. 📊 KEY METRICS: •...

Tier One People placed Matt Baxby as Revolut Australia's founding CEO. Six years later: 1M customers, profitable. The right leader changes everything. Looking for your next hire? Contact Dexter Cousins for a confidential discussion. Welcome back to Fintech Chatter Podcast - I n our first episode of 2026 Matt Baxby reveals how Revolut reached 1M customers and saved Australians $250M in FX fees...

Most people treat networking like fitness - they lie on the sofa for three years, then panic when they're out of shape. In this episode, Dexter Cousins breaks down the 95-5 principle: 95% of your job hunting success comes from 5% of your network. Learn how to identify the critical 5% of your network, activate them strategically, and turn two-minute conversations into warm introductions. This...

🚀 Hire outstanding Fintech talent - https://tieronepeople.com ✅ Follow Dexter on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dextercousins/ ⬇️ Download the worksheet - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rkcgAsabfYtPrZw1owzg1BpsnUxvLCDR/view?usp=sharing In this episode of FinTech Chatter, Dexter Cousins shares insights on how to find your next role in the fintech industry using the Lean Startup methodol...