Australia's NAB to invest $36m in fintech start-ups

The new vehicle - NAB Ventures - will be part of NAB Labs, a unit of the bank focused on fostering innovation and customer-led design. Areas of particular interest include mobile platforms, payments, and data and analytics. The capital will be deployed over three years in Australia and overseas.

"This is an investment in our business designed to improve customer experience through innovative solutions, making banking easier, better and simpler," Andrew Thorburn, CEO of NAB, said in a statement. "Banking globally is undergoing a digital transformation and NAB Ventures will ensure NAB is able to embrace these changes to deliver innovative solutions for our customers."

Rival domestic lenders Westpac and AMP have both set up captive VC units to boost their exposure to the tech space. Reinventure, the Westpac program, has A$50 million to deploy and has backed companies such as peer-to-peer online lending platform SocietyOne, big data player Zetaris, and payments solution provider PromisePay.

NAB also has an accelerator program "to enable digital innovation to be developed and put in the hands of customers and bankers quickly."

Earlier this year, Sydney launched a hub for financial technology start-ups, supported by initial funding of A$2 million from a string of Australian banks, property and technology firms in collaboration with the New South Wales government. Known as Stone and Chalk, the hub is a co-working space for entrepreneurs located in the central business district.

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