Published on the 04/08/2016 | Written by Beverley Head
Three Chinese startups fire up at Stone&Chalk…
A cloud based accounting system, dubbed “Xero for China” developed by MEGI Software; a QR based mobile payments platform that leverages China’s massive WeChat social network from RoyalPay; and S Capitol which is a bank specifically designed to meet the needs of entrepreneurs, will for the next three months be based at Stone&Chalk.
The initiative is intended to raise the profile of Australia as a regional fintech hub, and also provide the opportunity for Australian and Asian fintechs to rub up against one another and learn about regional rather than parochial opportunities.
First announced in February by Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison at the G20 meeting in Shanghai, a competition was held inviting Chinese fintechs to apply.
According to Alex Scandurra, CEO of the not-for-profit Stone&Chalk hub, this is part of a broader plan to establish a “fintech superhighway across Asia.
The Sydney incubator is already home to 90 local fintech startups, in various stages of maturity, which will now sit alongside their Chinese counterparts for the next three months. Speaking at the formal launch Scandurra said that it was a “great milestone” for the incubator and the NSW and Federal Governments which had been instrumental in getting the programme up and running.
He said the fact that different levels of Government had collaborated with the private sector on the project indicated its importance at a national and state level. Philippa Dawson, general manger trade in the international operations group at Austrade said that such initiatives were particularly important “As Australia comes to the end of the mining boom.”
While there’s nothing quite like a Shanghai Stone&Chalk offering local fintechs the opportunity to relocate in a reciprocal programme, the Federal Government’s Landing Pad initiative has opened in Shanghai and Australian companies can camp there while they find their legs in China. Scandurra was part of a mission that took ten Australian fintechs to China earlier in the year to give them a taste of the market and access to potentially useful contacts in that market.
The Chinese trio meanwhile has an opportunity to operate in a Western market, and take advantage of what Scandurra described as Australia’s; “Robust and sophisticated legal and regulatory market.”
Stuart Ayres, NSW minister for trade said that the Chinese companies would have the opportunity to grow their business locally, potentially leveraging off the 300,000 people who he claimed spoke Mandarin at home in Sydney. “Our culturally diverse population can give Chinese fintech companies a fantastic test market for wider US or European markets, as well as being a location which is on a similar time zone to home markets.”
He noted at the event that; “There is a strong sense that the global economic centre of gravity has shifted from the US, London from Europe,” instead he said it was defined by a “Line on the earth that runs between Shanghai and Sydney.”
