Major findings from the inaugural National Fintech Cyber Security Summit has revealed that there is a long way to go if Australia wants to be established as a regional hub for collaboration and innovation on security issues.
The Summit was the starting point for discussion on Australia’s fragmented and disparate cyber security industry. Data61, the analytics company has published a follow-up report titled “Startup secrets: How Australia can create new businesses with fintech and cyber security industry collaboration.”
The report highlights how Australia can leverage the cyber security and fintech talent present in the country’s startup scene and focuses on the need to combine the two sectors— along with the strong backing of both the government and industries— to advance Australia’s global competitiveness.
Financial services accounts for more than $141 billion in the Australian economy and employ more than 450,000 people, the Financial Services Council says. The report says,
If Australia is to develop a cyber-security industry it must start by building on what we have and not attempt to start over again.
The country’s peak innovation group says it is important to look at the intersection of fintech and cyber security to solve complex problems via collaboration, rather than by competing.
According to Australia’s Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security Alastair MacGibbon, cyber security is the foundation of the country’s information economy and similarly, MacGibbon believes Australia’s financial services sector is world-leading in its robustness and adoption of emerging trends. MacGibbon wrote in the report’s foreword,
Without world-class cyber security, trust in our ability to perform reliable financial transactions will erode, as will our confidence to develop new products and services for business and consumers. We are a nation of innovators, but too often our bright ideas are captured and commercialized by larger companies based overseas.
The cyber security veteran also suggests that it is of the nation’s best interest for all facets of the economy to work together to develop an Australian-based industry, rather than continuing to consume imported ideas and technology.
The report states that organizations will need to become “startup ready,” which will require corporates and government to re-engineer their procurement processes, create testing environments, and use smarter approaches to managing risk. It adds,
The opportunity for government to lead the way by being a customer to more startups is massive as agencies rely heavily on imported technology.
The report forms phase one of the organization’s fintech and cyber security roadmap.
