Introducing FinTech Australia's new membership structure

Its been a huge six months for FinTech Australia, and Im sure many of you can see the momentum weve generated.Weve worked to further connect Australian fintechs to the world with trade missions to the UK and Singapore. Weve signed MOUs with Frances Finance Innovation and The Singapore Fintech Association.Weve also championed our industrys views on the R&D tax incentive with Treasury and have spearheaded consultation on open banking, payments innovation and ICO policy with Canberra. We look forward to working closely with Senator Jane Hume on all of these policies.Thats all on top of what we would deem to be our most successful Finnie awards to date. We sold out within two weeks of opening ticket sales. For the first time in the events three year history, we had a waiting list for ticket sales.But despite all the work weve done to date, Im here to say that the best is yet to come.After years of lobbying, OpenBanking policy is at a crucial juncture and ensuring the right implementation and framework will be a key to ensuring its success. Future R&D tax incentive reforms also require close watch and a strong voice to ensure that skills and talent are not lost and our fintechs have the run they need to succeed.We are planning more trade missions overseas, and further partnerships with other peak bodies. A key to this will be the 6-month pilot program to London as part of the Fintech Bridge with DIT and Austrade.  And in the midst of all of this, we are planning the next Intersekt conference Australias leading fintech event. Last years event had record attendance, with a diverse crowd of attendees from startups, enterprise, investors and regulators. We are planning to make this years event bigger and more engaging than ever before.What were announcing today will lay the foundation for all of our future work.After months of consultation and input from members around the country, today we are rolling out FinTech Australias new membership structure.Its a crucial reform for our organisation, that we believe will give us the runway to take our group to the next level. Its been structured to offer maximum value to our members and at the same time, empower us to do more for the fintech community.In addition to introducing new price points, we will be including two new memberships tiers, inspired by the work weve seen done by other fintech peak bodies overseas.The first is a Friend of FinTech Australia membership. Weve had requests from so many groups outside of fintech industry to get involved and collaborate with our community. This membership offering allows them to do so. The second is an international membership, which will enable us to offer our services to overseas companies looking for a launchpad into Australias fintech ecosystem.With these new memberships in place and our reinvigorated membership offering, we believe there is no better time for fintechs around the country to join FinTech Australia.We expect the next few years to be transformative for the Australian fintech industry. We hope you will join us in what we expect to be exciting times ahead.If you have any questions about the new memberships please email me athello@fintechaustralia.org.au