Acorns Australia; Global Fintech Giant Launches in Australia with Plans to Dominate the Market

10th February 2016, Start Up Smart By Dinushi Dias

Now Dillon claims more than 2 million downloads.

Lucas says in some ways Australia’s online banking is ahead of the US so Acorns may gain faster traction here.

“We hope to have 100,000 users by the end of the year,” he says.

However, with 20,000 people already signed up and using the app, Lucas says it’s likely they’ll exceed this goal by December.

“Believe it or not Australians actually have a culture of saving,” he says.

Lucas has acted as an Australian partner for Acorns and says this has been instrumental in setting up local operations, financial services and licensing.

One of the key reasons Acorns took a partnership approach in breaking into Australia was to ensure they would be up to speed with its legislative and regulatory environment, Dillon says.

Dillon was Acorns’ fifth employee and has been with them through their first rounds of major fundraising.

During the research phase, Lucas says they held focus groups in Australia asking the same questions that were asked in US focus groups to identify key differences.

“Pretty much the mainstream was exactly the same,” he says.

This gave them confidence that Acorns would work in Australia.

Lucas says day-to-day use of technology can vary dramatically from market to market so ensuring your fintech product solves a problem that exists in the local context is critical.

“It doesn’t guarantee that just because you’ve got a great fintech product here in Australia that it’s going to work anywhere,” he says.

He highlights the example of transferring money between friends in Australia, which is commonly done through a simple exchange of BSB and account numbers.

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