Banking on IT

The episode delivers a handful of genuinely useful structural data points about the Australian fixed income market - minimum thresholds, the Euroclear workaround, fee mechanics, and the hybrid rollover opportunity - but roughly half the runtime is consumed by basic definitional throat-clearing (what is fixed income, what is SaaS) and host affirmations like 'Lovely,' 'Excellent,' and 'Cool.'

“we've partnered with Euroclear, for this clearing and settlement services you have access to pretty much 99% of bonds that are issued in Australia. However, Ulee don't impose those large minimum values. And in fact, they'll let you invest down to the minimum in the transaction documents, which for many bonds can be as little as$10,000.”

“the flows that we are seeing through the platform now, the team, they're managing, around$10 billion, in transaction flow with about two and a half thousand transactions per week going through the platform”

The episode surfaces one genuinely interesting structural argument - that the Corporations Act's $500K minimum has been the primary suppressor of Australian retail fixed income participation, and that Euroclear routing sidesteps it - but the broader framing ('Australians are underweight bonds,' 'this is an underserved market') is standard industry messaging with no contrarian or first-principles pushback.

“people may be considering some of these bonds as a substitute for term deposits. If you're buying a CBA term deposit versus a CBA bond. There's a high degree of familiarity with the name”

“Australia has a massive love affair with equity. And I think that the move from a mix of a Microsoft Equity and a Microsoft Bond, I think the market's still moving to that.”

Both guests are genuine senior practitioners with 20+ years in fixed income and capital markets, and they speak with operational fluency about clearing, custody, and pricing mechanics; however, neither is a founder or C-suite executive, and the conversation stays well within the promotional frame of their own product rather than drawing on broader market experience.

“Emily is head of institutional sales at Perpetual Digital. She's worked on the sell side within fixed income global markets for over 20 years, including primary and secondary bond and credit issuance, derivatives, and cash products.”

“Heather is head of markets and operations, has over 20 years experience leading strategic funding capital and investment activities as CFO, treasurer and head of products positions.”

The episode is meaningfully specific for its length - concrete basis-point pricing, transaction volumes, team headcount, named clients (NAB, JB Were, Shores, Climb), named acquiree (Laminar Capital, 2021), month-on-month growth rate, and the $40B hybrid rollover figure all ground the claims, though some estimates are given as ranges and asset-under-management totals are deliberately withheld.

“we might charge, say, 12, 15 basis points on funds under management in terms of the fee...So they might say I'm gonna charge that client 20 basis points, as a custody fee”

“probably our largest customer is growing at...In the region of month, on month at 5% a month, which...over probably two or three years now”

The host does push for numbers and clarifies mechanics well (market-maker status, minimum sizes, pricing model), but questions are frequently leading, affirmations ('Lovely,' 'Excellent,' 'Cool') dominate transitions, no claim is challenged, and the episode closes with award congratulations that signals the relationship is promotional rather than interrogative.

“do you have rough numbers on, how many people you've got On the platform in total? what's your kind of, whether there's assets under management, whether sales”

“would you also be a quote market maker”