Fintech startups in Melbourne

Nick Molnar, Anthony Eisen

The company that defined global BNPL, founded 2014 with its head office at 406 Collins St, Melbourne (the two founders were Sydney neighbours, but Afterpay Ltd was Melbourne-HQ and ASX-listed). Offers intere...

Rael Ross, Walter Rapoport

Melbourne B2B transaction-funding fintech founded ~2015, offering embedded invoice and trade finance to SMEs (advance against outstanding invoices in as little as 24 hours). Bootstrapped by the co-founders, ...

Joseph Healy, David Hornery

Australia's first challenger bank purpose-built for SME lending, founded 2016 by ex-NAB bankers Joseph Healy and David Hornery. Won a full banking licence in 2019 and hit unicorn status in 2020. Became the f...

(led by Ahmed Fahour; ex-GE Capital ANZ carve-out)

Melbourne-HQ consumer-finance group (personal/car loans, credit cards, interest-free retail finance), Australia's biggest non-bank consumer lender, spun out of GE Capital's ANZ business. Listed on the ASX (L...

Peter Cook

Melbourne digital-banking-and-payments company founded by Peter Cook (roots in 1990s prepaid mobile top-ups). Provides card issuing, cross-border and payment-processing infrastructure for banks and fintechs;...

Myles Redward, Piers Redward

Melbourne BNPL founded 2016 by brothers Myles and Piers Redward, targeting higher-value considered purchases (A$1,000–A$20,000) such as home improvement and lifestyle — differentiating it from small-basket B...

Andrew Ward

Founded 2012 in Melbourne by ex-CBA private-wealth director Andrew Ward, a flat-fee ($9.50) share-trading platform with a social portfolio-construction network. Listed on the ASX (SWF) in 2017. Acquired by S...

Jack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai, Ken Xi

Founded 2015 in Melbourne after the founders' coffee-shop venture exposed how costly cross-border payments were for small business. Now a global payments-and-financial-infrastructure platform (accounts, FX, ...

Aris Allegos, Andrew Watt, Piers Moller

Founded 2014 in Melbourne, one of Australia's first non-bank SME lenders. Provides unsecured small-business loans approved online within 24 hours, using real-time data from Xero, the ATO and others instead o...

Dominic Pym, Grant Thomas

Melbourne neobank launched 2018 as a collaboration between software studio Ferocia (co-founded 2011 by Dom Pym and Grant Thomas, and builder of Bendigo Bank's app) and Bendigo & Adelaide Bank. Popular with y...

Darren McMurtrie, Simon Jones, Simon Lee

Melbourne payments-infrastructure company that began as PromisePay in 2013 (milestone-based escrow payments), rebranded to Assembly Payments in 2017, and became Zai in 2021 after merging with CurrencyFair, b...

Yaniv Meydan (co-founder)

Melbourne BNPL founded 2013, targeting longer-term, higher-value instalment plans (auto, healthcare, home improvement). ASX-listed, but became the first major Australian BNPL to collapse — entered receiversh...

Pat Garrett, Brian Watson

Melbourne robo-advisor founded 2014 (launched 2016) by ex-JP Morgan executives Pat Garrett and Brian Watson, offering professionally managed, diversified ETF portfolios with human oversight. Advisory board i...

One of Australia's earliest and longest-running crypto exchanges/wallets, founded in Melbourne (2013). Offers retail and business crypto trading, a crypto card and custody; expanded to the UK/EU. Melbourne's...

Christie Downs & Kathryn Wood

Founded 2017 by a construction-industry director and a former QBE head of claims; a three-sided marketplace connecting insurers, homeowners and pre-vetted local contractors for small property claims (under ~...

Nigel Fellowes-Freeman

Founded 2019 (rebranded from Expense Check in 2021); a data-driven embedded-insurance platform with a low-code stack letting insurers, MGAs and brokers rapidly launch and configure products inside partners' ...

Blockchain platform digitising bank guarantees, born from an ANZ/CBA/Westpac/IBM/Scentre consortium and spun out as an independent Melbourne fintech. Cuts weeks of paper-based guarantee processing to minutes...

Fintech challenger for SMEs — payments, transaction accounts, cards and financial tools — founded 2020 by ex-Square Australia lead Ben Pfisterer. Rapid Silicon-Yarra scaleup that reached unicorn-territory va...