What you need to know:

• Digital pure-play bank hires two seasoned finance execs in bid for growth.
• Jeff Nel joins as COO from Judo Bank, Chief Growth Officer Sascha Hunt from Aussie.
• Now in full scale-up mode after gaining banking licence in July 2021.

Australian fintech Alex Bank has raided rival Judo for new Chief Operations Officer Jeff Nel while swooping for Chief Growth Officer Sascha Hunt from Aussie.

The start-up landed a banking licence last year. It’s now in full growth mode, with Nell bringing scale-up expertise from UBank and Judo and Hunt decades of growth and brand building experience via senior roles at Allianz, Tabcorp, Google, BT Financial Group, Citibank and ING Direct.

The bank, started by former Suncorp execs Simon Beitz and Craig Fenwick, and which counts Judo Bank co-founder Alex Twigg on its board, is a digital pure-play aiming to attract tech savvy (i.e mostly younger) customers by promising to make banking simple, fairer and smarter and while using tech to de-risk operations and liabilities.

To date, Alex Bank has raised $20m, and mid-2021 landed a restricted banking authority from APRA. The aim is achieve a full licence while growing customer numbers and its deposit-funded loans operation via direct-to-consumer and broker channels. So far, it has lent $25m to low risk customers.

CEO Simon Beitz said the bank also has new products in the pipeline.