Check out the 10 most successful fintech startups in New Zealand
Top 10 fintech startups in New Zealand. Source: pixabay.com
Being home to the worldwide-known cloud-based accounting software platform Xero, New Zealand was recently ranked one of Asia Pacific’s fastest emerging fintech hubs and one of the top 10 fintech destinations in the region. Due to the friendly regulation terms, fintech startups have been growing at the fastest pace among all other technology-related companies. According to the fintech research and innovation advisory platform MEDICI Global, New Zealand is one of the “next 20” promising fintech geographies.
Today, PaySpace Magazine Global has prepared the list of the most promising fintech startups founded in New Zealand.
Harmoney
The peculiarity of the project is that Harmoney is not a credit union or other type of lending institution itself. The startup created a marketplace bridging the gap between lenders and borrowers. Started as a P2P lending service, the fintech now mostly cooperates with institutional lenders. Since 2014, Harmoney has become the largest online personal lending platform in Australia and New Zealand.
Personal loans at this platform are customized based on the borrower’s financial details. It offers customers individual interest rates, repayment schedules, and borrowing limits. The procedure happens online, with most of the approved loans reaching your bank account in 24 hours.
In November 2020, the company had its A$92.5 million IPO at A$3.50 per share, valuing its market cap at A$353 million. It’s now listed on both ASX and NZX. During the 6 years of its operations, Harmoney has provided over NZ$1.8 billion in personal loans (growing at a compound annual growth rate of 86% between FY15 and FY20) to more than 47,000 customers across New Zealand and Australia. The company has increased its total current loan book to approximately NZ$472 million.
Sharesies
Sharesies is an innovative investment platform that is arguably easier to use than its competitors’ services. The platform offers investment into over 170 NZX-listed companies and 35+ managed funds. In August 2020, Sharesies also launched its US shares platform. Now its members have additional access to 3,000+ companies and ETFs across the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Nasdaq, and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). The next expansion aim is the Australian market. Meanwhile, direct ASX stocks are going to be added to the platform’s options this year.
This fintech has made investments available to virtually everyone. With no minimum investment policy, even 1c can bring one a partial share of the listed companies and funds. However, some subscription fees apply to portfolios over $50.
In its first two years of operation Sharesies signed up about 20,000 members, but since the COVID-19 crisis, Sharesies has seen hyperbolic growth. It boasts over 250,000 members and $850 million under management now.
LatiPay
Founded in 2015, Latipay deals with all kinds of innovative payment products such as payment solutions for marketplaces, cross-border transactions, social-media commerce, mobile business payment solutions, micro-instant payments, subscriptions, recurring billings, and virtual card issuing. The company also created the Money More app – ‘AliPay-like’ lifestyle E-wallet.
However, its flagship product is a universal payment gateway. It’s a compliant payment platform that allows the currency to be transferred from CNY to NZD. Thus, Chinese businesses, students, travelers, and consumers can pay for goods, study, flights, or experiences in CNY using AliPay, WeChat JD Pay, or one of 19 compliant online banks while Latipay users in New Zealand or Australia receive the payment in their native currency without any fuss.
Hnry
Hnry is an award-winning managed service for self-employed contractors and freelancers, providing invoicing, tax, and insurance services. Once registered, users get their own unique Hnry Bank Account. Their income tax, GST, ACC, and student loan payments are auto-paid on time, and tax returns filed when they’re due. The company selected ASB as its banking partner, in order to provide transaction banking services for its clients. The bank has a reputation for innovation and embracing new technologies so the partnership promises to be fruitful.
During April-June 2020, Hnry had a 260% rise in new customers compared to the same period last year since many people turned to either partial or fully independent earnings in the wake of redundancies and restructuring. Moreover, many traditional accounting services became unavailable during the lockdown.
Figured
An original fintech solution brought to New Zealanders by Figured opens new horizons for farm accounting. The company created complete livestock, dairy, and crop budgeting, production tracking, and a forecasting tool that gives you accurate real-time data. The tool also automatically calculates market and taxation valuations, gives an understanding of a farm’s equity position at any point in time, provides multi-farm management, and seamlessly integrates with Xero.
The fintech’s newest product Figured Insights is the first agri-specific tool for the farming team to explore, analyze, and understand the financial performance of all the farms in their organization, as well as make plans with future-focussed predictive modeling algorithms. The new platform gives agricultural advisers the opportunity to aggregate farms for reporting, or segment farms to isolate those who need help more than others.
New Zealand is one of the “next 20” promising fintech geographies. Source: unsplash.com
Jasper
Jasper is a digital platform through which investors can buy “fractions” or shares in commercial property chosen by an expert team. Minimum investment opportunities start from $1000. The startup offers different variants depending on the number of investments and customers’ ambitions. For instance, Jasper’s most recent offer is the Industrial Income Plus Fund, a private commercial real estate fund that invests directly in a portfolio of industrial properties located in high growth areas, with resilient tenants and longer-term leases. Three industrial properties in the sought-after Auckland industrial precincts of Hobsonville, Papakura, and Mangere will initially seed the fund. The minimum investment here is $25,000, with further units available in multiples of $5,000 thereafter.
Jasper is also in the process of adding new features to their platform including:
- A secondary marketplace that will match buyers and sellers.
- An auto-reinvest function.
- An AUD wallet.
- Commercial real estate debt offerings.
Vend
The leading Kiwi POS and retail management software company, Vend, provides cloud point-of-sale software, inventory management, e-commerce solutions, customer loyalty systems, and reporting analytics. In particular, it created the world’s first POS app for iPad. Vend’s software integrates with leading business apps, including Afterpay, Square, Shopify, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. It is a key retail partner with Apple, CardConnect, and Xero too.
The company’s total funding amount now is $46.5 million, while the annual revenue is somewhere between $39m – $54m. Over the past 10 years, Vend has shown tremendous growth and now counts more than 25,000 retail businesses as customers in over 140 countries.
Genoapay
The startup offers a buy-now-pay-later solution for small-scale purchases (usually $1,000 or less) with no interest or additional fees for the consumer. A Genoa Pay installment plan costs the business a small margin between 4-7% of the price of the goods or services sold. Consumers pay 10% upfront and the rest in 9 weekly automatic payments. They can also track the spending, change payment days, see upcoming payments and repay the outstanding balance early with no fees.
Centrality
Centrality fintech is a New Zealand-owned and operated venture platform involved in creating the technology of programmable money and the financial service experiences that are enabled by it. The main utilized technologies are blockchain, AI, and IoT. As a recipient of the New Zealand government research grant, Centrality works alongside NZTech, Singlesource, and the NZ Government to create Digital Identity NZ, an organization working to bring private and government organizations together in making digital identity easier and secure.
CENNZnet is a proprietary public blockchain designed and built by Centrality to support decentralized application ecosystems. CENNZnet works on a dual-token economy:
CENNZ: used for staking and governance.
CPAY: used for network transactions and block rewards.
Choice
In 2018, the startup successfully piloted with the help of the Kiwibank Fintech Accelerator Programme. The choice is a “Robin Hood” payment system that allows paying with your phone rather than a bank card. All the customers need to do is scan a QR code at the checkout. The merchant’s transaction fee is flat 10 cents whereas half of that transaction fee (5 cents) goes to charity. Users can then track their contribution to their chosen charity through an app-based interface. The company enables a direct bank transfer to the merchant, connecting banking APIs with the physical terminal fleet. The blockchain infrastructure enables its activities.
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