Payments was the easy part: what's next in Fintech
13 October 2026
- Scale up
- Investors and enablers
- Innovators
- Early/growth stage
Lots of Fintech innovation has been structured around payments, but open data and digital identity present a big opportunity for future Fintech startups. While a lot of the focus to date has been on B2C, there is a big opportunity in B2C.
New Zealand fintech has done well out of payments. Payments has been the sector's strongest lever, and it still is. But the momentum is shifting toward a broader open data and digital identity layer, opening up a new wave of Fintech startups.
Creative HQ and FinTechNZ are hosting an evening panel on that shift, built on Theme 4 of the FinTechNZ Insights Report, "Innovation in Financial Services".
Three things we want to get into:
- Payments took us here, but the next products get built on open data and digital identity, not transactions.
- Innovation is skewed heavily toward consumer apps. B2B, wholesale and core infrastructure are still under-served, and that is where a lot of the value sits.
- New Zealand is under-regulated in the wrong places. Clear licensing and sensible guardrails would unlock confidence and capital rather than slow things down.
On the panel:
- Sasha Lockley, founder of MoneySweetSpot.
- Adrian Smith of CEO BlinkPay.
- Nicola Raynes-Pene, Partner, Consulting and National Industry Lead for Financial Services at KPMG.
Who it is for: founders building in and around financial services, investors, regulators, and corporate innovators trying to create new Fintech innovation.
Free to attend. Drinks and nibbles provided.
Speakers
Adrian Smith
Tumu Whakarae (CEO) at BlinkPay
Adrian Smith is CEO of BlinkPay, a Māori fintech that built New Zealand's first real time bank to bank payments capability on open banking. Ngāpuhi, raised in Hamilton and a University of Waikato graduate, he has spent his whole career shipping digital products in financial services. He co-founded BlinkPay and became CEO after BNZ acquired the company in November 2024.
BlinkPay's work sits in the infrastructure layer rather than the consumer app layer. In test payments last year, money moved from customer approval to available funds in 2.6 seconds. That kind of speed depends on rails, standards and bank willingness that most people never see, which is exactly where New Zealand's open banking progress gets decided.
Nicola Raynes-Pene
Partner and National Industry Leader Financial Services at KPMG
Nicola leads financial services across KPMG New Zealand, covering banking and finance, insurance, wealth management and property funds. She has around 20 years in the sector across New Zealand, Ireland and the UK, ten of them inside banks working on capital, stress testing and regulatory reporting.
She sits on the FinTechNZ Executive Council.
Sasha Lockley
CEO at Money Sweet Spot
Sasha Lockley is a fintech founder, social entrepreneur and systems thinker working to redesign how debt works in Aotearoa. She co-founded Money Sweetspot after years inside the financial system, where she watched good people get labelled high risk for missing one payment, going through a relationship breakdown, or caring for whānau. The system was judgemental when it should have been understanding. Efficient, but not effective.
Money Sweetspot is a fintech social enterprise helping people move through debt with dignity, using practical tools that combine responsible lending, behavioural insights and financial education. Its financial reset model is not charity. It is built to deliver measurable outcomes and scalable innovation, and to make financial tools that actually work for the missing majority.
Sasha partners with business, iwi, fintech and investors to unlock social capital and co-design products that reflect real lives rather than rigid rules. Her view is that the next generation of finance will be more inclusive, more human and more effective, but only if the sector is willing to rebuild trust and rewire incentives instead of tweaking the edges.
Venue
GridAKL / John Lysaght
101 Pakenham Street West
Wynyard Quarter
Auckland 1010
GridAKL / John Lysaght is more than just a workspace — it's a thriving community of visionaries, innovators and change-makers. GridAKL is home to a diverse mix of startups and small businesses working together to create solutions that make a difference.