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After 7 years of asking we finally have Zip on the show! And it is definitely worth the wait. Zip Co is one of the jewels in the Australian fintech crown. But this show could so easily have not happened. In 2022 Zip's share price crashed, the cost of funding rose exponentially and their foundational BNPL model looked to be doomed. What has happened since then is nothing short of miraculous. But if you look under the hood you'll see a lot of the work that saved Zip was already well under way from day one.

Soraya Alali leads Zip Co in Australia and New Zealand, the Australian fintech that serves 10% of the Australian population and 65,000 merchants. Soraya chats to me about the Zip turnaround, why profits rose when customer numbers fell, and how Zip moved from AI experiments to live agents in 12 months.

About Soraya Alali

Soraya Alali is CEO of Zip Co ANZ and has just presented her first full year of results in the role. She joined Zip from Commonwealth Bank.

What we discuss

• How Zip grew from flexible credit into payments and Zip Mobile
• Why cost-of-living pressure has Australians seeking value and flexibility
• What drove a doubled cash earnings contribution and a 750 basis point margin lift
• Why fewer customers and higher profit can both be good news
• How data from 65,000 merchants shapes Zip's next bets
• What changes when you move from a major bank to a fintech
• How Zip went from AI experiments to live agents, with a human in the loop
• Why so many big bank hires leave scale-ups in their first six months
• What Zip looks for in the people it hires

Timestamps

[00:00] Introduction
[01:10] Welcome Soraya Alali
[01:48] The Zip story
[02:36] Beyond a single product
[04:05] Cost of living
[05:33] First year results
[07:16] Fewer customers more profit
[08:35] Customers not users
[11:50] Zip's refreshed strategy
[12:47] Choosing the next bet
[13:52] Bank to fintech culture
[16:40] AI at Zip
[21:31] Keeping AI disciplined
[23:41] Fronting the ASX results
[24:38] The year ahead
[25:10] Why bank hires leave
[27:28] Resilience and discipline
[28:50] Why join Zip
[30:32] Close

Links and resources

• Soraya Alali on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/soraya-alali-8a236687
• Zip: zip.co/au
• Careers at Zip: zip.co/careers
• Tier One People: tieronepeople.com

This show is brought to you by Tier One People, where we work with leaders like Soraya to find the 1% who redefine what's possible. If you're scaling your leadership team, start at tieronepeople.com.

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Matt Barr is CEO of Send Payments, the Australian company that embeds cross-border FX into enterprise platforms including PEXA, BoardRoom and pay.com.au. He explains why those partners choose Send on compliance ahead of price, why the bigger FX markets sit offshore, and how 140 AI agents help a team of about 70 run the business.

About Matt Barr

Matt Barr became CEO of Send Payments in August 2025 after more than 25 years at Australian Payments Plus, eftpos, Mastercard, Telstra and Bank of New Zealand. He spent eight years at Mastercard and was chief product officer at eftpos in 2020.

Key talking points

1. Compliance wins the deal. Send built AML/CTF monitoring and a direct AUSTRAC integration into its platform, and Matt says partners choose it on those credentials ahead of price.

2. The bigger FX markets are offshore. Foreign currency makes up about ten percent of an Australian small business's invoices and about seventy-five percent in Canada, and Send plans to follow its partners into the US, Canada, the UK and New Zealand.

3. Agents are staff. Each of Send's 140 AI agents has a name, a resume and a line manager, and Matt says output per two-week sprint rose by 40% or more.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction

[05:26] Compliance by design

[09:40] Enterprise partners and use cases

[18:09] 70 people and 140 agents

[27:42] Hiring for a remote-first team

Links

Send Payments: https://sendpayments.com

Careers at Send: https://sendpayments.com/careers/

Matt Barr on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-barr-087322/

Tier One People: https://tieronepeople.com

This show is brought to you by Tier One People, where we work with CEOs and founders like Matt to find the 1% who redefine what's possible. If you're scaling your leadership team, start at tieronepeople.com

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Xavier Shay is the CEO of Up, the Australian digital bank that reached a million customers on word of mouth and has been standalone profitable for the last twelve months. He joined as employee 27, was CTO before taking the top job, and explains why Up refused buy now pay later and why it does not try to win on features.

About Xavier Shay

Xavier Shay is CEO of Up and chief digital officer at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, having joined Up as a software engineer in 2019 and moved through CTO before taking over as CEO in 2021. Before returning to Melbourne he spent close to seven years at Square in San Francisco, joining at around 150 staff and leaving a listed company of three and a half thousand people.

Key talking points

1. Word of mouth does the marketing. About 70% of Up's new customers arrive because a friend told them to, which Xavier traces to features people want to talk about, Save Up $1000, 2Up, and a support team that answers like a mate.

2. The brand decides the roadmap. At the peak of buy now pay later Up said no and shipped Maybuy instead, a savings plan that asks whether you still want the thing. Half the customers walk away with the money.

3. Brand is the moat, not features. Australia has free instant payments and good incumbent apps, so Xavier says Up does not win a feature by feature comparison and never has. It reached standalone profitability on how it makes people feel about money.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction

[02:50] Why word of mouth works

[07:06] Saying no to buy now pay later

[18:18] Employee 27 at Ferocia

[23:21] Competing in a functional market

Links

Up: https://up.com.au

Careers at Up: https://up.com.au/careers

Xavier Shay on LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/xaviershay

Tier One People: https://tieronepeople.com

This show is brought to you by Tier One People, where we work with CEO's and founders like Xavier to find the 1% who redefine what's possible. If you're scaling your leadership team, start at tieronepeople.com

Send us Fan Mail

Connect on with Dexter Cousins on Linkedin

Hire Exceptional Fintech Talent

Subscribe on LinkedIn