The awards champion innovative approaches in Australian fintech, business excellence and collaboration, and / or the deployment of technologies and business models that allow users to access financial services and products in new ways.
Your initiative could be a new approach or a deployment of technology that has not previously been considered. An innovation does not need to be a world-first, but a new approach either for your company and / or in your market, and you must demonstrate clearly that it has been successful with your intended customers.
FinTech Australia has enlisted the help of a prestigious panel of judges representing a cross-section of experts from the private and public sector (such as support services, banking, venture capitalists, accelerators, consultancies, industry associations, and government). Judges are each assigned specific categories to judge, with at least 5 judges evaluating every category. The judges will assign point values based on the criteria.
Judging Criteria
The judges will evaluate entries based on the following parameters (entrants do not need to address every parameter specifically in their application):
- Distinct/novel within their category / overall
- How well does the company do what they say they do?
- Current Success / Potential Success
- Difficulty of the problem that is solved
- Impact: Considerations include productivity, profitability, user experience, risk management, knowledge-transfer, and applicability beyond the financial sector
- Practicality: Examples include ease of implementation, scalability, and cost-effectiveness
- Interoperability: Ability for the solution to interface with other systems
- Innovation & Creativity: Extent to which the solution differs from the status quo.
- Entries should clearly articulate the brand values and strategies of the organisation.
- Ethics and Social Responsibility: Extent to which the company exhibits integrity in its operations, whether toward its customers, employees or the industry as a whole.
Evaluation
Special categories will be evaluated by specific criteria, such as Emerging FinTech Leader of the Year, Outstanding FinTech Leader of the Year and FinTech Organisation of the Year.
Entrants must be based in Australia, and any metrics used within answers must be metrics from the Australian market. International metrics may be used for the Going Global award.
The selection of the appropriate category, the interpretation of the criteria, and the answers provided by each entrant form part of the overall evaluation of the submission. This document sets out clear instructions and directions, and no further assistance will be provided to entrants regarding the preparation of their entries. The approach and information contained in an entrant’s submission will be considered truthful unless and until proof to the contrary is made to the FinTech Australia team and/or Board, which may result in the disqualification of the entry.
All information supplied in submissions, including testimonials, internal documents, churn data, and financial metrics, is strictly confidential and accessible only to the judges assigned to the relevant category. It will not be disclosed to any third party and will be stored in the strictest confidence. Judges are bound by formal confidentiality obligations and must abstain from assessing submissions involving competitors, friends, family members, next of kin, co-workers, or any other connection that would prevent an objective and impartial assessment.
Short-list of Finalists: The FinTech Australia Board, CEO and Panel of Experts will use the evaluation and criteria guidelines specified in this document to shortlist all the entries of each category to select up to 08 finalists. The selected judges will use the same evaluation and criteria guidelines to select the winner of each category.
NB: All financial metrics should be from 30 March 2025 to 30 March 2026.
When submitting your entry please provide guest access to your platform, where possible, for each judge so they can further explore your platform to inform their scores.
N.B: Please do not attempt to contact the judges directly regarding your Finnies Awards submission. FinTech Australia reserves the right to disqualify competing companies for any reason, including attempting to affect or influence the judging process in a manner that was not intended by the event organisers.
Download Categories & Processes Document
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