Kiwi FinTech Keeps Hiring Despite COVID-19.

Tuesday 1st September. Wellington, New Zealand. Award-winning FinTech company Hnry is planning on expanding its employee numbers by almost 40 percent over the next month, as growth in the Kiwi FinTech industry continues to help boost the economic recovery needed due to the impact of COVID-19.

Over the last few months, there has been a big increase in the demand for FinTech services like Hnry - an online accounting and tax service for freelancers, contractors and other independent earners, says CEO James Fuller.

“One result of Covid-19 has been the normalisation of remote working, and with social distancing in place, in-person meetings have become more rare, he said.

“Getting access to cost-effective financial services online has been of huge importance, and so there’s been a big growth in the demand for FinTech. We are in the fortunate position of not having had to make any redundancies during the recent lockdown period, and so investing in our high-performing team is really important to us”.

Fuller says that with overseas expansion imminent for Hnry, the company wants to make sure they are not only staffing up to meet the increased demand they already have, but are ready to scale up their service and product too.

They are not alone in the need to hire, Fuller says, with a number of other Kiwi FinTech businesses hiring at the same rate.

“There’s a bit of friendly competition amongst the FinTechs to attract the highest quality candidates,” Fuller said.

“Our hiring plans are certainly on a par with what is happening in the wider New Zealand, and global, FinTech industry”.

Fuller says Hnry is looking to bring on new staff across all areas of the business by early October, including in finance, operations, customer success and engineering.

They currently employ 16 full time staff at their Wellington CBD office, as well as an additional pool of contractors and freelancers that work when required, creating a dynamic, agile workforce.

The business has experienced a rapid expansion since launching in 2018, when Fuller was working full-time and unpaid to get it up and running, while co-founders Claire Fuller and Richard Freestone continued to work around their other full time jobs.

After less than a year, eight people were working full time for Hnry, and the business won ‘Emerging Services Gold’ at the Wellington Gold Awards. That staff number doubled again just a year later.

“We always look for people who are self-motivated,” Fuller said.

“We’re not an old-school organisation with layers of management and bureaucracy - we’re a company that moves incredibly fast. Mostly we look for people who are enthusiastic about what we do - and the problems we solve for people”.

Fuller says Hnry’s philosophy is that everyone’s ideas are considered equal and people have the autonomy to really “own” their place in the business.

“With the challenges of COVID-19 making it even more the case, we’re looking to make sure we are really engaged with our team and to reward our staff delivering at a high level,” he said.

“Investing into our people has the knock-on effect of helping invest back into the economy, and for NZ FinTech to be able to do this wherever possible in a time that is still very challenging for many people and industries is important”.

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