{"id":44117,"date":"2023-10-20T15:33:35","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/london-calling-dear-malcolm-turnbull-act-now-or-see-best-fintech-talent-lured-away-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:33:35","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:33:35","slug":"london-calling-dear-malcolm-turnbull-act-now-or-see-best-fintech-talent-lured-away-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/london-calling-dear-malcolm-turnbull-act-now-or-see-best-fintech-talent-lured-away-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"London calling: Dear Malcolm Turnbull, act now or see best fintech talent lured away – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Startup founders that participated in the recent fintech week in the UK have a blunt message for the Australian government: act now or lose even more talent overseas.<\/p>\n

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Ten Australian startups were flown to London by UK Trade and Investment at the start of October for the London Fintech Week, with many viewing it as an open attempt at poaching these companies from Australian shores.<\/p>\n

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Now one of the ten startups has made the first move, with peer-to-peer real estate lending platform Lend2Fund to soon relocate to London, as the Australian Financial Review<\/i> reports.<\/p>\n

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It was a combination of more transparent regulations and readily available seed funding that convinced co-founder Paul Missio to make the leap.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAustralia can\u2019t match the powerhouse of London for a fintech company that has global ambitions. The UK nurtures fintech for global scale but we aren\u2019t seeing a cohesive \u2018global\u2019 vision in Australia,\u201d Missio told the AFR<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI dare say others will be tempted to make the move to friendly waters.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The lure of London<\/b><\/p>\n


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A number of other startups that participated in the trip say the Australian government needs to act now on regulatory concerns and other fintech issues in order to keep these potentially huge companies on Australian shores.<\/p>\n

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Simply Wall St, a Sydney-based startup that creates infographics to simplify stocks information<\/a>, also made the trip to London, and co-founder Nick van den Berg says it\u2019s inevitable that Aussie fintech companies will look overseas.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou will go where you think you have the highest chance of succeeding,\u201d van den Berg tells StartupSmart.<\/i><\/p>\n


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\u201cIf the government is serious about keeping entrepreneurs here they need to do everything possible, and look around the world.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAs much as I love Australia, your patriotic feelings only go so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The trip to London was \u201cfascinating\u201d, and he says there was little doubt about what the ultimate intention of it was.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA government isn\u2019t going to fly all these startups over if there isn\u2019t an aim there,\u201d van den Berg says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cUndoubtedly the aim was to highlight the benefits of operating in the UK, whether for a complete relocation or setting up an office presence. They were very good at highlighting the benefits of what\u2019s over there.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLend2Fund are doing what they think they can to maximise success, and that\u2019s what people should do. That\u2019s why we went on the trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An impressive ecosystem<\/b><\/p>\n

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On-Market BookBuilds<\/a> founder Ben Bucknell, who also took part in the trip, says the fintech scene on show in the UK was very impressive.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how quickly they\u2019ve established a growth industry,\u201d Bucknell says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019ve taken a very proactive approach in creating an environment that\u2019s conducive to fintechs, and they\u2019ve really shown a lot of strong initiatives in terms of the policies that the government has put in place. That\u2019s paying dividends.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But Bucknell\u2019s startup won\u2019t be moving to the other side of the world just yet.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur focus is very much on ensuring we\u2019re delivering an absolutely fantastic product to the market we\u2019re in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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For the moment, Simply Wall St will also be staying in Australia, but a relocation overseas is definitely on the cards at some point unless the situation improves Down Under.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe big thing for us was whether we need to be in a different location to succeed,\u201d van den Berg says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn the immediate future we answered that with a \u2018no\u2019. There\u2019s a lot we can achieve here in Australia \u2013 75% of our users are from outside Australia. We\u2019re already global from day one.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDown the track it\u2019s absolutely on the table. We\u2019ll go wherever we need to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What the government has to do<\/b><\/p>\n

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The big appeal in the UK seems to be regulations that are considered more transparent and collaborative, and the recently introduced tax rebates for angel investors.<\/p>\n

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Van den Berg says the Australian government should be looking to the policies in the UK, as well the likes of New Zealand and Singapore.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s pretty simple \u2013 copy everyone else,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere needs to be less talk and more action \u2013 from a tax perspective, with rebates for investors and with founders\u2019 relief.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you really want to do it just take the best market practices and steal what everyone else is doing. They need to start acting like a startup and stop talking \u2013 that\u2019s how you build the confidence to keep these companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A lack of access to capital for startups and the regulatory web are the key barriers to operating a fintech business in Australia, Bucknell says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPeople are going to go where the capital is,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou can\u2019t spend years doing anything without money. If you\u2019re doing something entirely new you\u2019re not going to have that cash flow \u2013 you need to try something that hasn\u2019t been done before.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere needs to be an environment that is conducive to raising capital so you can attract the highly qualified, capable people that could have alternative careers in banking or law.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere needs to be greater upfront capital commitments and more government support, particularly when other parts of the world are already providing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Want to grow your business with Instagram?<\/i> StartupSmart School can help<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Startup founders that participated in the recent fintech week in the UK have a blunt message for the Australian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}