Pause Awards - Australia's leading innovation awards - has shone a further IWD spotlight on the gender pay-gap by discouting awards entries for female founders by the same amount as the published pay differential.Previous Fintech Pause winners have included female-founded Verve Super, Dom Pym, founder of Up Bank, and WeMoney, who stormed home with 4 awards in 2023.[pictured: Christina Hobbs, Zoe Lamont, Alex Andrews]

Investing for the first time can be confusing, especially for young people wanting to promote positive impact on people and the planet. Inaam is a fintech app helping investors discover causes they care about, to create a curated impact portfolio.More importantly, it explains how each $ invested helps achieve ESG goals. Starting with shares, the vision is to expand into every asset class at all stages in the capital life cycle, so investing can operate more sustainably and embrace circular economy principles. Inaam will reinvest its own profits into impact businesses led by diverse founders.  Waitlist information: www.inaam.me

The global impact investing market is set to soar. Yet many investors are struggling to find accessible opportunities that offer transparency and liquidity. Enter RegenX, an innovative fintech startup transforming alternative assets by using tokenisation to unlock private capital for climate-positive projects. RegenX is building a seamless SaaS platform that enables investors from all walks of life - including individual enthusiasts, financial advisors, wealth managers, and institutions - to channel funds into sustainable ventures in real estate, private credit, infrastructure, commodities, renewables, art, wine, collectibles and more.The end result is allocation of capital for positive environmental and social impact.

Rise is a global community of the brightest minds to shape the future of financial services. As a diverse community of FinTech talent, they are dedicated to fostering collaboration, creativity, and growth.With world leading programs and workspaces strategically located in the heart of FinTech hubs worldwide, Rise provides an exclusive platform for FinTech companies to connect, innovate, and scale alongside Barclays.https://rise.barclays

WeMoney - the personal finance app that helps reduce debt & bolster financial literacy - gave the Fintech sector a much-needed Christmas boost by taking home 3 gongs at the Pause Awards presentation night in Melbourne.In what has been a tough year for many Fintechs, WeMoney's holistic approach to helping consumers source better deals whilst improving their overall financial health, especially during periods of high financial pressure, clearly resonated with the judges.The Pause Awards is a spin-off of Pause Fest, which for many years was Australia's Equivalent to SXSW, and recognises startups and scale-ups across multiple sectors.

Boodle is a purpose-built personal financial management (PFM) app designed by Founder Michelle Green to help women take control of their finances. In addition to open banking enabled bank account aggregation and income & expenditure tracking, the app will offer personalised insights and goal setting, plus access to a community of like-minded women for additional support.A key feature of the app is lightening the mental load by securely bringing all of your finances into one place.Boodle has just opened its waitlist for Australia ahead of its launch in 2024.  The app will launch later in New Zealand. https://boodleco.com/