Payments startup QPay wants to be the challenger bank for millennials and has $570,000 from Sydney Angels to get there

Born from an online student-focused ticketing, merch, and memberships marketplace, payments startup QPay’s newest vision is to be the challenger bank for millennials — and the founders reckon they’ll be first to the punch.

The startup originated in early 2015 in Canberra, operating as a small online marketplace where students at the Australian National University could buy tickets to upcoming concerts and events. Co-founder Andrew Clapham remembers the first event they ticketed, a tiny graduation dinner.

“We did a payment for a little graduation party, I think we sold about 30 tickets. The next event we did we sold 2400 tickets for a music festival, and it spread from there,” Clapham told StartupSmart.

The online marketplace offering still exists, but Clapham and his co-founder Zakaria Bouguettaya have taken advantage of Australia’s upcoming open banking regime to try and become a challenger bank focused at millennials and students, and is currently rolling out its own Mastercard to allow its users to spend and earn bonuses. Read more

Dominic Powell - Smartcompany - 28 Mar 2018