Three senior finance leaders have joined fast-growing start-up Paytron, a cashflow management and payment platform established in 2020, as the booming fintech sector continues to attract talent away from the traditional banking sector.
The new hires include former Westpac Head of Private Banking, Tim Smith, payments and partnerships veteran Ingrid Heal, previously with MYOB and former Vice President, Commercial Payments Solutions at Mastercard, and Stu Hallows, international payments and risk expert, former Western Union, Director Operations, Asia Pacific.
What is the significance of this hiring by Paytron
All three leaders bring decades of financial and technology experience to bolster co-founders Francois Henrion and Jaco Veldsman’s combined 40 years in institutional banking.
This demonstrates the talent transfer from the traditional banking sector to fintechs as Australia innovatives low-cost payment platforms for both consumers (BNPL) and SMBs.
It is recognition of opportunities offered by digital accounting platforms for Australia’s huge SMB population, historically underserviced from a banking and payments perspective by the banking sector, with their greater focus on the institutional corporate & consumer side.
Paytron’s platform integrates seamlessly with XERO and MYOB’s software and builds on their efforts to simplify the previously costly and time-consuming process for SMBs.
Paytron is expected to complete its MYOB integration in the coming weeks, with more accounting packages and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to come.
“We’re delighted Tim, Ingrid and Stu have joined the Paytron team.”
“Their experience and focus on the fintech revolution in banking and accounting reinforces the attractiveness of this sector to leadership talent in the financial services sector.”
“Paytron’s purpose is to make our customer the Hero, whether it’s the SMB owner who gets their weekend back, or the trusted advisor, bookkeeper or outsource CFO.”
“We want to help SMBs grow their bottom line by leveraging their existing resources with our automated and simplified payments system,” said Jaco Veldsman, Paytron Co-Founder.
Who has Paytron hired?
Former Westpac Head of Private Banking, Tim Smith, has joined as Paytron’s first Advisory Board Member. With a strong track record in banking, corporate treasury and the fintech sector, Tim will advise the board on Paytron’s operational management.
He will also advise Paytron on domestic and international growth, sales and distribution.
“I am delighted to be advising the fast-growing team at Paytron, a fintech that is solving real-world problems for SME’s. Paytron understands small business pain points. Its frictionless technology improves operational efficiencies, cashflow and peace of mind,” Tim said.
Ingrid Heal joins Paytron as Head of Partnerships after three years at MYOB. She was with MasterCard for 17 years, finishing as Vice President, Commercial Payments Solutions.
Led by Ingrid, Paytron’s platform development strategy includes creating partnerships with other fintech and financial institutions to provide customers with more innovative tools to address their pain points and ease financial processes.
“I’m excited to have joined Paytron because I share Jaco and Francois’s passion for SMEs by better servicing them to help them grow. Now, with Paytron, I’m looking forward to addressing that and providing them with the financial solutions they deserve.”
“SMEs need Paytron’s digital customer experience with innovative financial tools and technology, to better manage cash flow and provide peace of mind”, said Ingrid.
Stu Hallows, Chief Risk Officer, joins as part of Paytron’s commitment to trust and compliance, driven by belief in the importance of financial regulation for customer protection.
With over 30 years of experience, Stu was formerly Director Operations, Asia Pacific for Western Union, before moving to the Fintech industry.
Utilising his experience managing international banking and payments functions, Stu will independently lead all risk management and compliance relations domestically and internationally, including as part of Paytron’s global expansion strategy.
“Compliance is often the last consideration for Fintech start-ups because the initial focus is on product and revenue development. I’ve seen this lead to business failure. Paytron understands that embedding risk mitigation across the design of its products and services is essential.”
“This focus at such a pivotal time for the business will give customers and partners peace of mind that Paytron understands what is required to deliver security and certainty.”
“Paytron’s seamless product is an integral part of a businesses’ financial supply chain DNA, solving a fragmented set of processes, each carrying inherent risks,” commented Stu.
Paytron has also hired two additional software developers to continue developing development capabilities and refinement of service development.
“We’ve grown exponentially and become an accomplished business quickly. We started servicing customers in March, and already we’ve made three strategic senior additional hires and bolstered our development team.”
“The skill sets and experience are invaluable and will help us achieve our mission of making the business lives of our customers simpler”, said Francois Henrion, Paytron Co-Founder.
