So You Want To Partner With A Financial Institution?
For our first major meetup for 2017 we gathered an amazing panel of ‘insiders’ to help demystify corporate partnering — and that’s exactly what they did.
Partnering with a major financial institution is the ‘holy grail’ for most fintech startups. It means distribution, social proof and (hopefully) revenue. Yet it’s a tricky process full of potential pitfalls— figuring out corporate structures, attending meeting after meeting after meeting and waiting for the phone to ring can be tough. In fact, when EY ran their Fintech Census in 2016 41% nominated “building partnerships with banks and other financial institutions” as a key external challenge.
Having said this, many banks have teams devoted to partnering and are actively looking to engage with innovative startups that can complement or augment their business.
So what’s going on? Why the chasm?
That’s exactly what we wanted to discuss at our ‘Demystifying Corporate Partnerships — Find Out What It Takes To Succeed’ event. Specifically, we wanted to explore what are commonly seen as issues from the ‘fincumbent’ perspective. To do this we invited a great panel of speakers to explore the topic. On our panel we had:
Jon Davey, EGM of NAB Labs;
Matthew Buck, Corporate partnerships at ANZ; and
Stephen Rilley, COO at HESTA Super.
The panel was moderated by Gajia Lu — who runs partnerships at Moula.
On the night a variety of topics were discussed in relation to the corporate partnering journey. However, one of overarching messages from the panel was that there is a real willingness to partner with startups and a eagerness to bring best of breed solutions to their customer base. However, it was noted that startups need to be patient and really think through the applicability of the solution to the fincumbent’s customer base.
Many in the crowd enjoyed the event and found it valuable. Here’s an example of a tweet from the night:
Thank-you
Events like this don’t happen without the kind support of sponsors and partners.
Fintech Victoria is always thankful for the wonderful support it receives from the generous Victorian fintech ecosystem. For this event we want to thanks our partners — Next Money and The York Butter Factory. We’d also like to thank our venue sponsor, Greenwood + Herbert Smith Freehills.
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See you at the next event!
