Keynote address to the Fintech Australia Intersekt 2026 Conference, Melbourne

Welcome to the stage, the Honourable Dr Daniel Mulino MP for the keynote address. Daniel Mulino: Well, thanks very much. Look, the emcee, you’re a tough act to follow.

You’re the Lionel Messi of emcees. Thank you very much. Can I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay respects to elders past, present and emerging.

Can I also say it’s so wonderful to see such a big crowd here, to know there’s an overflow room, but also to see all of the incredibly innovative and exciting companies who have stalls throughout the complex here today. Intersekt is always a really significant and lively event, and it’s wonderful to see this year’s being the biggest ever. And as Rehan said, it’s also an area where there’s a great deal of engagement through parliamentarians across the aisle at all levels of government.

And we see that through the parliamentary ‘friends of’ group, so the 15th of October is another event I’m looking forward to. I was chatting to Sarah before and I think FinTech Australia does a great job through the parliamentary ‘friends of’ group in engaging with parliamentarians. And can I acknowledge that it’s wonderful to know that there’s so many other MPs coming here today – Anthony Carbines but also my federal colleagues Andrew Hastie and Tim Wilson.

It’s good to see that there is engagement in these really important issues across the aisle. Can I acknowledge Sarah Gorman, the Chair of FinTech Australia, and to Rehan, that was a really wonderful address. And I see both Sarah and Rehan often through engagement on policy issues, and I want to acknowledge the role that FinTech Australia has played over a long period of time in helping to think through the policy side of technology and innovation in our economy.

Innovation is critical, and there are few areas I believe – and I’m biased in saying this – but I think that finance and the role that it plays in our economy in seeing that the potential for innovation to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. The finance sector at its core is often seen as a very technical sector and one which people maybe don’t think of day to day, but I think when we think about what it is that the finance sector does, it plays a key role in helping people to achieve the things that underpin their living standards.

The finance sector is how we transact. The finance sector is how we save, how we borrow to buy our first car or our first home. The finance sector is how we manage risk, how we prepare for retirement and provide for dignity in retirement.

And there’s much more besides. So for me the finance sector is a technical sector, but at the heart of it all is achieving really foundational consumer outcomes, and innovation in the finance sector is about achieving those outcomes in a better way. And can I just also acknowledge it’s wonderful to know that Brad Jones is coming and also other regulators – ASIC, APRA, ACCC.

And the regulators are absolutely critical because we do need to have innovation flowing through our financial services sector and our economy more broadly, but we need to make sure that we balance, lean into the growth but balance the guardrails and the social licence to make sure that we can embrace that innovation in a way where it is safe, where there are risks, but also that we take the community with us.

Now, I’m very conscious that I’m going to be making some observations about technology while talking to a roomful of technology experts. So I just want to say from the outset, I’m not here to tell you about technology, but I do want to tell you about where the policy direction is headed, and I want to make some specific announcements today. But I did want to, before getting into some observations on technology, say that my background is economics, so I just wanted to give a minute on economics just to give you a sense of how I as an economic minister think about innovation.

And when I start thinking about innovation I go back to a well‑worn quote from Paul Krugman, which is that productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it’s almost everything. And this is one of the few things macroeconomists agree with – which is that if we’re thinking about what drives our living standards in the long run, almost all economic models now start with productivity; that we need to think about ways in which we produce new goods and services and processes.

That’s where so much of what makes our lives better comes from, but also more efficient ways of combining inputs. We do not want to have an economic growth model that is driven by working longer or having more and more capital. So productivity lies at the heart of everything.

That’s the first thing I wanted to observe. And the second thing I wanted to observe is that there is a clear link between productivity growth and innovation. And that is something which has been at the heart of economic theory for a long time.

But I just wanted to make that second link, and I think that’s something which for me is a really important backstop to the way we think about policy in this area. Now, of course, when we think about the link between innovation and productivity, we can go back to economists going back many, many decades, but I think Schumpeter for me stands out, the creative destruction of new ideas, new products, new services entering into the economy.

And he, I think, had a 4 stage process where there is innovation, where there is competition and through the consumer and their desires, that innovation can then take the place through their desires reflecting a preference for the new goods or new services. It then starts to take the place of the old goods and services. That’s where the destruction comes in.

And then there is a reallocation, a reallocation of capital and of skills and of other parts of the economy so that it then flows towards the new innovative goods and services. And that reallocation then in a sense creates a new norm, which then is disrupted by the next wave of innovation. So I just wanted to start with that creative destruction, and then I just wanted to reflect on the fact that in the decades since Schumpeter, who was reflecting on this around the 40s and 50s and really revolutionary thinking, he was a very – compared to modern economists – a very powerful but insightful economist, but, of course, was operating at a time when economics was less model driven.

But over recent decades there have been economists who have really, in a sense, tried to put theoretical rigour on that deep intuition, people like Paul Romer and his endogenous growth theory, which basically says that new ideas are really what drives a lot of economic growth. He won the Nobel Prize in 2018. And more recently the Nobel Prize last year was from – was awarded to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, and that was, again, about innovation and the way in which new products and new services drive productivity.

So I just wanted to reflect on the fact that the way in which innovation drives productivity and productivity drives our living standards is right at the heart of economic theory. It’s produced multiple Nobel Prize winners over the last decade. It is driving a huge literature of economic theory.

You know it very much, of course, because it’s your day‑to‑day existence, but I just wanted to provide you that perspective but it also lies at the heart of how I think about our broader economy and then what you’re doing to drive improving outcomes for citizens and consumers in our broader economy. Now, of course, it’s worth saying that our financial sector is a huge sector, huge in terms of GDP value‑add, huge in terms of employment.

And, as I mentioned earlier, very significant in terms of the kinds of outcomes it provides people in their day‑to‑day lives. We start from a position of strength. We have a very mature financial services sector.

We have a very stable and sophisticated financial services sector that I think gives us an edge when it comes to both creating and adopting innovation. Of course, we are a significant financial services sector and economy, but we’re not the world. There’s going to be much innovation that occurs beyond our shores, and we need to have a global approach and have processes and regulation whereby we can bring innovation into Australia in such a way that it can be then adopted in a way that is as quick as possible and also as safe as possible.

We also want to be a source for innovation. And I think that there are many areas in innovation where we are punching well above our weight, such as fintech. There are many areas of innovation, of course, in financial services which are very dynamic at the moment.

Rehan pointed to our payments system, and it’s good that Brad Jones is here. The payments system is going through a revolution at the minute, and that’s an exciting thing because the payments system is a touch point for consumers every single day. And the price they pay, the costs they incur, the speed of those transactions is absolutely foundational to the way in which they engage with our financial services sector.

There are other areas such as digital assets, such as tokenised assets which, again, are going through a revolution at the minute. And it’s very important that we continue to be at the forefront of that. And many, many other areas, and I’ll touch at the back end of the speech on a few areas where government is leaning in when it comes to regulation.

And what I would say is that when it comes to all of these different areas of regulation, for me it comes down to a range of benefits – speed of transactions, and this can be absolutely critical when it comes to, for example, somebody who requires money in their account in order to undertake transactions, a vulnerable person, having that money go in quickly, instantly, makes a huge difference to, for example, the old days where somebody would have had to wait over the weekend for clearance.

There are real benefits to people, and often the most vulnerable in our society, where we can see our financial services sector operate with more speed. Of course there’s a reduction in cost, and these cost benefits just add up in people’s lives and produce significant benefits over time. Reliability is a huge issue.

And I was giving a scams workshop yesterday. Reliability in our financial services system is extremely important. And I think a lot of the financial innovation is adding significantly to that.

There’s ease of use. I’m convinced that technology – while on the one hand there’s many people in our community, older people, sometimes people from a CALD background, who find some technology difficult – there are many other ways in which technological innovation is making it much easier for people to access financial services. The way in which it can individualise a person’s interface, the way in which it can figure out how a person likes to communicate, the way that insurers and banks, for example, are now using AI to figure out who is a vulnerable consumer in real time based on their individual interaction with that consumer.

So there’s many ways in which the financial services innovation is producing real, tangible and very material consumer benefits. But as I alluded to, I think we also have to acknowledge that our financial services sector is also built on trust. And so we need to make sure that as we embed innovation into our system that we do so in a way where people trust that the system is safe for them and trust that it is going to be operated in a way where it is in their best interests.

And I think we can juggle those. More often, there are many instances where those 2 objectives, making the system work better and trust, will actually be aligned, and we can push both together at the same time. There might be some instances where we have to think about trade‑offs, but I’m very confident that we can manage that.

Now, today I want to make a couple of specific announcements. The first is that we are moving from principle to practical action on a few fronts. And I’m pleased to announce today that the government will agree to the recommendations of the statutory review of the Enhanced Regulatory Sandbox, which was led by Maha El Dimachki.

And Maha is here and we’ll be on a panel together. But I just want to say that it was a real privilege to work with Maha on that review of our regulatory sandbox. For me the regulatory sandbox is a really important part of the way we as policy makers think about innovation, because at the heart of it is saying we want to lean in and allow more innovation coming into our system but to think about ways in which where we can identify risks, we can manage those risks initially and then if we figure out ways to do that we can then allow it to blossom more broadly.

And I was thrilled that Maha was willing to undertake that review. She’s a globally significant thinker who has a big CV which includes senior roles in the UK but also, of course, more recently at the BIS at the Singapore Innovation Hub. So she wrote a really thoughtful report on that Enhanced Regulatory Sandbox, and we’re going to accept all the recommendations, and that will lead to some immediate government actions and also to a number of longer term pieces of work.

So thank you for that, and I’ll see you on stage. I’m also pleased to announce today that the government is releasing its Financial Innovation Strategy. So this will set out our vision for a more dynamic, competitive and trusted financial system that supports innovation, investment and better outcomes for consumers and businesses.

And I’m hoping that releasing a strategy signals to the sector but also to our community more broadly that this is an area that is really important. And also, above and beyond being a signal, that it drives government action, some of which I’ll be able to flag today. And the guts of the strategy is the fact that, firstly, we want to acknowledge that there is a lot going on in this space.

There is a lot of innovation occurring and to acknowledge that that is potentially transformative. It’s a transformative opportunity for the betterment of our community, for our citizens, for consumers for getter much better outcomes through the financial services sector and more broadly across the economy. Secondly, that we need to think about this in global terms, that there is much innovation going on around the world and that we need to contribute to that, we need to be a source of innovation, but we also need to be willing to bring as much of that innovation into Australia as possible, into our payments system, into our digital assets management and all of the other aspects of our financial services system.

And thirdly, and this might be the most important one to flag at an event like this, we need action, but we need coordinated action. Coordinated action through government, through the regulators and, of course, through the people in this room. We need to work together on concrete actions that will see the strategy come to life; come to life with innovation, bearing fruit in our community.

And so there’s a few things that the government is announcing today, but what I want to flag is that I am very keen to continue to work with you, because this is going to be an iterative process where you’ll tell us about what you need, we will figure out what our constraints are, the regulators will think about how things work in practice, and in all areas of complex policy implementation and delivery these processes, I find, are highly iterative.

And I just wanted to flag that I think this will need to be an action‑oriented, delivery‑oriented agenda, and one where there’s a real partnership at the core of it, partnership with the sector, with the innovators, with the thinkers, but also with regulators and with government, and that government is very committed to that. So, in terms of some concrete actions, first, we’re going to repeal the existing legislative sandbox framework and we’re going to replace it with the more flexible model administered through ASIC’s existing relief powers.

So that is going to be a much more ambitious regulatory sandbox, bringing it more into line with best practice, with systems such as the UK and Singapore and others. Second, we’re going to establish a financial innovation committee to bring industry, regulators and government together to identify opportunities early, to work through regulatory barriers, and to keep Australia’s financial innovation agenda focused on practical outcomes.

And thirdly, regulators and government will consider targeted, thematic sandboxes in priority areas where testing can help identify barriers, strengthen safeguards and inform future settings. And this to me, is an area where there is a huge potential for benefit. We can identify thematic areas where there is the potential for significant productivity gains, significant consumer gains, where a sandbox can allow a government, regulators and the industry to work together to figure out how we can extend that.

Can I just say very briefly – and I’ll not going through it in huge detail here – but there are a number of areas where we’re working. Payments modernisation is a huge priority. So Brad Jones is here, Rehan talked about it.

In ’26–27 in the Budget we committed to a new strategic plan. We will be consulting publicly on that soon. On digital assets and tokenisation, I did want to flag that we have passed legislation a few months ago, which is critical there.

I continue to work with that sector. This is a huge opportunity. In fact, it’s a huge area of activity where we’re seeing digital assets and tokenised assets already being traded in increasing volumes, whether it be equities, whether it be bonds, whether it be all sorts of other assets, and making sure that we have digital asset platforms that people are confident in, tokenised custody platforms that people are confident in, this is an area where there is huge potential opportunities for Australia, and we continue to work.

On the consumer data right, we are in the middle of what we are calling a reset, and so, firstly, we have ensured that the resetting of the data standards is now on a more regular basis. It’s being done less frequently and in a more targeted way. And the feedback we’ve received is positive around that.

In the Budget we announced that we’ve got funding for a business case to examine ways in which the ATO might share data through the CDR. So that is obviously a complex and sensitive area but one where there’s huge potential gains. We have to be cognisant of the sensitivity around privacy and security of data and also the potential IT costs, but we are now seriously looking at that.

And there are a number of other important reforms like nominated representative and others that we continue to work with the sector on. But the CDR remains a real priority for me. And, as you would know, non‑bank lenders have recently been brought in, so there’s a number of areas of progress.

And as Rehan touched on, 1.5 million users now and rising, and, importantly for me, uses in more and more high‑value‑add areas. And then scams prevention, I won’t go into the detail, but Australia is in many ways leading the way with its ecosystem approach where we bringing in telcos and digital platforms into a broader approach than just the banks. But what I would say is that for me it is an example of where we need to have a very customer‑oriented approach to this.

And what I see in my day‑to‑day interactions with companies in all those sectors, AI is being used by the perpetrators and big data and technology, but AI is now also being used by the financial sector organisations and by the regulators. And when I go to scams workshops, it’s really interesting to talk to the members of the community about that. There’s now a lot of activity with banks and with telcos and others to adopt preventative approaches using the very most advanced technologies.

So for me that’s an example of technology being used directly in consumer protection, and that will build more trust in our system. So can I just say that this is an exciting time in this sector. I get that from this room.

I understand that from all of the events that this community holds, whether it be in conferences like this or at parliament where you generate as much interest as just about any other topic, and rightly so. I’m really thrilled today to be announcing our strategy. I’m really thrilled that we can start to move forward on concrete actions such as the response to Maha’s report, and I really look forward to working with all of you to drive more productivity growth and to drive much better outcomes for our citizens and our consumers.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Minister and Assistant Treasurer. Let’s get straight into it.

Sarah, Maha, jump up on stage. [Inaudible] by the way. Love the [inaudible]. [Inaudible] recommendation. And I was spending Saturday night in Canberra [inaudible] birthday [inaudible].

All right, we’re going to have a quick fireside chat. Of course, Maha, who gives government all their best ideas, is the CEO of GFTN Solutions, and Sarah Gorman, the Head of Growth at DAS and Chair of FinTech Australia. Over to you.

Sarah Gorman: Thank you very much, and welcome, everybody. So this is going to be a little like speed dating because the minister needs to catch a plane very shortly. But this fireside and this conversation is really all about one thing only – and that is how do we champion our fintech sector, and how do we make Australia one of the best places in the world for fintech to start, scale, grow and exit as well.

So how do we back the builders, the job creators, the wealth creators who are building the financial system that our economy runs on. Now, we want Australia to be a place where we can build, where we can experiment, innovate with confidence, and this is all something that the just‑announced Financial Innovation Strategy will target. For us, let’s just jump straight in.

Minister, you’ve just launched the strategy. What’s the most single important message you want the industry to take away from this and/or the most – the biggest pain point that you’ve been trying to solve via this strategy? Well, I think the biggest single message – and I’ve probably got 2 microphones now – the lapel and this – so hopefully that is my attempt at productivity.

But look, the biggest single message – and I’m really interested in Maha’s thoughts on this – but, look, I think we need to take a global approach. So as regulators and politicians, I think we need to constantly be thinking, you know, are our settings right, are they getting the right balance between embracing innovation and thinking about the guardrails. And I think Maha’s report is a really good example of that.

So, we need to be embracing the best thinkers around the world, just as you do when you innovate in technology. So that’s one thing. And the second thing is I think we need to continuously remind ourselves of the huge opportunity there is for better outcomes for people and, in a sense, lean in to the growth side of things.

And I think that reflects the government’s broader agenda. And the Treasurer has flagged this more generally across the economy. We had a 3‑day reform roundtable last year.

We want to, with the right guardrails, really lean into productivity growth. But productivity growth can sometimes sound like a sterile economic concept, but lean into changes that are going to lead to real benefits for people. Okay, so Maha, you did call for the report.

Does it give Australia what we actually need, particularly against the local landscape and incredibly short tech cycles? Maha El Dimachki: Yeah, look, let me start by saying I’m incredibly humbled to be asked to do the review and humbled to work with you, minister. Anybody who [inaudible] by the way, so, you know, infrastructure, [inaudible].

So, I think Australia is in a great position. If we really look at what is driving innovation around the world, it’s scale, it’s infrastructure, and it’s regulation. You know, and Australia has a lot of those components.

So the fact that you’ve just heard, you know, a number of announcements, a number of commitments to action, I think should give everybody confidence that this is the right thing to do. And this is a huge industry – $650 billion. Fintech is estimated to be a $650 billion industry around the world.

$250 billion of that is in payments, and $120 or so is lending. That’s because those 2 sectors started first. Then you have trading behind wealth and insurance, estimated around $80 billion.

So there’s huge opportunity in those sectors. You’re also looking at everybody innovating. So, you know, we have to qualify what that institute looks like because right now it’s becoming mainstream.

What is fintech? If you’re not a FinTech, if you’re not innovating, you’re probably going to be left behind. So, again, the trends that we’re seeing is that everybody is innovating, and this is where, when I looked at the – when I did the review, the definition of a fintech was really important to broaden and to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to innovate.

But those barriers to innovation and setting of business technologies are allowing that to come down as well, so you see companies being able to innovate with AI tools, with tokenisation, et cetera, and before you know it, their valuation [inaudible], right? And, you know, they get to [inaudible] service quickly. So, there’s a real opportunity here that Australia can really unlock, and this is the moment.

And, you know, that keynote speech kind of sets us on the right path. I agree. So, let’s come dive into that speed of innovation a little bit more and one of the thematics of the report, which is actually thematic boxes.

Why are regulators moving in this direction, and how can the thematic sandbox support innovation – eg, AI, assisted financial advice, automated insurance underwriting, tokenised markets, digital money. Maha, probably this is one for you. Just tell me more about why thematic sandboxes on the global stage, it’s importance and what it means for us here in Australia.

El Dimachki: Well, again, technology is becoming universal and ubiquitous. And it’s cutting across – you know, it’s economy‑wide. It’s cutting across the entire economy.

When you look at financial services, again, this isn’t anything that – I’m just building on what you’ve already heard. When we look at financial services, it’s fuelling the economy. It’s not necessarily an industry that sits on its own.

Sure, there’s certain, you know, trading activities that happen in that way, but actually it comes down to how people live their lives, how businesses can survive and really fuels economic growth. So, when we start to look at that, the fact that technology cuts across the economy and financial services sector has an integral part to play; experimentation with the speed cycle of technology versus what we do with regulation has to be shortened.

You know, it takes us 2 or so years to change the legislation – around the world. I’m not talking about Australia; this is just something that we observe around the world. That cycle is not matching the 6‑month cycle, you know, at most that technology – that we’re seeing in the sort of technology advancement.

And unless we shorten that cycle, we’re going to have a problem. And, you know, this rupture will continue to broaden. And that cycle can actually be shortened by sandboxes.

And it’s not just about, you know, we do the sandbox, we observe the experimentation, then we go and change the legislation or get regulators to do what they do, and then the cycle is another 2 years. It has to be concurrent. So speed is – everybody is talking about sandbox.

Call it sandboxes, call it experimentation, test beds, whatever you want to call it, as long as there’s an environment for experimenting and some dynamism around how we need to respond and harness the opportunity with more speed, I think is a challenge that not only exists in Australia but everywhere around the world, is what I would say. One hundred per cent, and I think that that experimentation and innovative approach and how we experiment and iterate faster and execute faster is something that FinTech Australia wants to see happen.

We’re right up on time, unfortunately. But, minister, when we can’t move through to some of the areas, the strategy now commits the government to third‑party disclosure and fit some nominated representative arrangements, both things our members have been calling for around data rights and trust. What it doesn’t give us is the timing.

Do you think we’ll see consultation and implementation, and can we move it forward this year? Yeah, I mean, part of the difficulty – and this goes to the kind of the 2‑year process that Maha talked about – part of the challenge with anything regulatory and, in particular, legislative, is that you’re up against a number of constraints. One is all the consultation, but one is also just the drafting constraints and then getting the legislative slots.

And part of the challenge for me as a Treasury portfolio minister at the minute is there is so much going on in Treasury. There’s obviously the huge tax agenda, and let’s talk about CGT next year – but there’s also a lot of consultation in the sector on that. But there’s also – you know, I was at the Press Club a week and a half ago on super and trying to make that system safer.

So, we are really trying to prioritise this, and, you know, the nominated rep is something that I think has the real potential to transform. It’s a priority, and I will keep talking to the sector about the timelines on that. I mean, can I also just add one thing to the need to speed up implementation, I agree with, you know, everything Maha has said, and that’s reflected in her report and discussions I’ve had with her.

One of the things that is a challenge for regulators and governments is that there is often change going on – and AI is an example but not the only one – where you can see the potential for benefit, and you can see some actual benefits, but the actual nature of the change is not particularly clearly knowable as it’s being developed. And I must say, sometimes that’s even the case within the sector.

So, I might talk to 5 different experts in the sector about AI or about other things going on in the payments system, and they might all disagree. But then there’s also a certain unknowability not just about the actual technology but about how it’s potentially going to impact consumers and the risks. So there is sometimes a desire for us to allow rapid rollout, but just to give you the regulator perspective and the political perspective, we also have to navigate that uncertainty.

And we need to kind of try to embrace the change, to lean into growth, but when we’re talking to experts, and there’s a bit of uncertainty and unknowability, we also have to kind of factor that in. But the broader message I wanted to give today is that what’s happening here is super important. The innovation is positive.

We want it to roll out. And I think the strategy, the sandbox, all these different elements for me are real priorities. So thank you for the chance to announce that here and also to discuss it.

I think the fact that you are announcing it here holds our sector in such high regard. You know, this is the place where everything happens, at Intersekt, and now the Financial Innovation Strategy to be launched here this morning is a significant event for us in Australia. Thank you.

Any last comment on anything you’d like the room to hold you accountable to in the next 12 months if they were back here in a year? And, Maha, the same thing for you. What tells us one year later that we got it right?

Well, look, I think I outlined a few different areas, whether it be digital asset platforms and tokenised custody, whether it be CDR, you know, all the different areas where real innovation is happening, you know, I would very much hope that I can report progress in all fronts, even if I haven’t necessarily been able to get everything like nominated reps done by the end of the calendar year.

I’m confident that next year I’ll be able to indicate preference on all those fronts. And very specifically on the sandbox, I would hope that by the time I come back next year there is a thematic sandbox underway. That’s going to take, you know, time for me to get approval within government and funding and so forth, but I’m really keen to, you know, develop the enhanced regulatory sandbox framework based on the recommendations but then actually to see it in practice.

Fantastic. Maha? El Dimachki: Very quickly, take action and take it quickly.

I think the minister just outlined that. Collaborate. This isn’t something that government just has to be committed to.

It has to be collaboration with regulators and industry in particular. And if there’s obstacles, you’ve just got to find ways to remove them. And those thematic sandboxes might be kind of difficult to put because there’s a lot of collaboration to actually set them up, but these are the ones that will actually deliver most value.

So, I’d like to see that at least one of those is there. Everybody else around the world is starting to do that; look at the Nigerian sandbox, a presidential order just recently. There’s examples all around the world.

This can be done here. And so, let’s not catch up; let’s actually be at the coal face. Hear, hear.

Thank you, everybody.