Wedge Hits $100M Milestone in Mission to Save Kiwis Billions
Six months after launch, New Zealand fintech Wedge has hit $100 million in managed funds and nearly 2,000 customers, offering savings rates far above traditional banks and aiming to save Kiwis billions.
The Auckland-based company, founded by brothers Dave and Andy McLeish alongside business partners Angela Quirk and Lyle McNee, is on a mission to revolutionise how New Zealanders save their money. Their pitch is simple but powerful: why settle for bank savings rates as low as 0.05% when you could earn 3%?
“New Zealanders have been underserved when it comes to competitive savings rates, and we’re here to change that.” says Andy McLeish, Chief Customer Officer for the bootstrapped venture. “Our mission is to save New Zealand’s savings.”
The numbers tell a compelling story. With approximately $300 billion sitting in New Zealand bank savings accounts, Wedge estimates that if all Kiwis saved with their platform, they could collectively save around $6 billion annually. That money is currently flowing into the pockets of bank shareholders as excess profit.
Even with their current customer base, Wedge is already making an impact. “We’re currently saving our customers about $2 million a year,” McLeish explains. “That’s $2 million staying in their own pockets rather than going to the banks.”
McLeish says that Wedge’s innovation lies in combining “the superior returns of a managed fund with the benefits of a bank account, including a set rate of interest.” Unlike traditional investment firms that charge fixed fees regardless of performance, Wedge only makes money when their fund performs above their guaranteed rate. The platform offers on-call access with no restrictions, penalties, or minimum amounts. It’s all managed through a mobile app that deliberately mimics the familiar feel of banking.
The company invests in low-risk cash and cash-equivalent assets, including near-maturity corporate and government bonds from around the world. Their portfolio maintains a credit rating of AA, higher than most New Zealand banks’ AA- rating. Currently offering interest at half a percent above the official cash rate for NZ, Wedge pays returns daily, so customers can watch their balance grow each day rather than waiting for monthly interest payments.
“Wedge is committed to the rate that we advertise,” McLeish emphasises. “Just as a bank is to theirs. But with our fund having a higher average credit rating, it just goes to show how bad the banks have been treating savers.”
The journey to market wasn’t easy. The team spent months navigating regulatory approval from the Financial Markets Authority, a process McLeish describes as “extremely difficult, expensive and time consuming.”
“We just didn’t fit in a box,” he recalls. “The FMA would ask, ‘Is it A or B?’ and we’d go, ‘Well, it’s C.’ And they’d say, ‘There is no C.’ But there is now.”
The regulatory hurdles delayed their planned Christmas 2024 launch until mid-May 2025 and proved to be the hardest part of building the business. “Every time we thought we were there, something else came up and cost us another four weeks,” McLeish says. “That was a really challenging time for all of us.”
The team funded the entire venture with their own money, turning down multiple private equity approaches. “We’ve seen a lot of examples of startups where the founders end up with very little left of the business and find themselves working for someone else,” McLeish explains. “That’s basically what we’ve tried to get away from.”
For McLeish, the move into fintech represented a significant career pivot. Having sold his stake in advertising agency Shine, following a career working with major banks including ASB, Westpac, BNZ, and ANZ, he was ready for something different.
“I spent a lot of time selling burgers, beer, energy drinks, and banking products that weren’t good for people,” he reflects. “It feels good to be doing something that is actually good for the country.”
His brother David brought deep investment banking expertise from a decade at Fisher Funds and prior experience at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS in London. Together with Quirk managing operations and McNee handling day to day investment decisions, the four partners work from a small K Road office.
Despite the challenges, McLeish says the venture has always felt right. “My wife and I talked about it for a long time before putting a bunch of the money we made from selling the agency into this,” he shares. “It’s high risk I guess, but it’s never felt risky to us. It always felt like it was going to work out.”
The experience taught McLeish about his own capacity for persistence. “It’s taken a lot of resilience and determination, and it’s something that I didn’t really know I had,” he says. He admires his brother’s determination and has learned that the ability to keep pressing forward, even when situations seem hopeless, is essential for startup success. This revelation about his own capabilities surprised him and proved crucial during the difficult regulatory approval process.
The company plans to expand beyond their current on-call savings product into notice savers and term deposits, with recent launches for business and trust accounts already showing promise. They’ve exceeded their initial forecasts but acknowledge they’re “a long way” from profitability.
“I think we can be saving Kiwis billions of dollars a year,” McLeish says. “That’s a massive prize that’ll make a material difference to a lot of lives, and it’s worth going through a bit of hardship for.”
Interview and story by Leighton Littlewood.
Innovation Nation is a series celebrating stories of innovation and diversity in entrepreneurship from around New Zealand.
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