About | Flequity Ventures

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Founded by Catherine Fitzpatrick in 2023, Flequity Ventures is a for-profit social enterprise on a mission to disrupt financial abuse and gender bias through smarter product and service design.

Good business.

As a social enterprise, we exist to do good.

The world is unequal. Violence is gendered.

We’re here to fight financial abuse and gender discrimination.

Through consulting, impact initiatives, partnerships and advocacy, we aim to inspire you to think differently, design to disrupt and level up for millions of customers.

At the heart of everything we do are the voices of lived experience. We partner with experts to bring this perspective to our projects, and recognise that we build on the legacy of pioneers in women’s safety.

We want to make the unseen visible and change unstoppable.

If you’re ready to make an impact with us, get in touch.

Access to the financial safety collective.

We work with trusted, strategic partners to empower your business to prevent and respond to domestic and financial abuse. Our partners provide trauma-informed and ethical practices to understand the diverse experiences of people with lived experience of domestic and financial abuse. With deep expertise in women’s safety and complementary skills in customer vulnerability programs, they can help to round out your approach so it’s holistic and future proof.

Our expert partners.

Why do we focus on financial abuse?

Globally, nearly one in 3 women experience intimate partner violence.

In Australia, 1 in 6 women and 1 in 13 men have faced economic abuse – almost as many as physical violence.

Financial abuse is where money is used to control, coerce and manipulate another person. It occurs in more than 90% of domestic abuse but remains a hidden epidemic. It often continues long after a relationship ends and can be a reason women are forced to choose between violence and poverty.

Unlike physical violence which often occurs behind closed doors, financial abuse frequently involves the misuse of products, services and systems.

Businesses are uniquely placed to reduce and eliminate financial abuse.

“If we can change how businesses design products and services, we can unlock gender equality.”

Catherine Fitzpatrick

Our impact initiatives

We created the respect and protect public awareness campaign to encourage all businesses to make it clear they will not tolerate the misuse of their products to cause financial harm.

Evidence shows that one of the essential actions to prevent gendered violence is to challenge the condoning of violence against women. Changing business contracts by including financial abuse in the terms and conditions makes it explicit. Read the May 2024 launch media release here.

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“Financial abuse is a form of coercive control and we have zero tolerance for it. As a bank, we see some of the signs – both overt and covert – of abusive behaviour in the way people may treat and interact with those close to them. We actively monitor transactions and intervene where we need to, and we’ve invested in training our people to identify the signs of financial abuse and how they can work supportively with those experiencing it. Formalising our pledge to Respect and Protect is a proud moment for us. We support the strong leadership of people like Catherine Fitzpatrick, and are committed to embedding the identification and elimination of financial abuse wherever we find it.” - Rachel Morley, Chief Member Growth & Experience Officer, BankVic

“Insurance protects our customers most valuable assets and the impact of financial abuse can be devasting. We play a critical role in showing we do not tolerate this behaviour and are here to protect our customers in their time of need.” “By joining Respect and Protect and implementing a perpetrator clause, we’re demonstrating that abusive behaviour is unacceptable and how businesses can make a stand to make the world a safer place.”

“It’s important banks incorporate safety features into their products and services and continue to work with industry and authorities to raise awareness about abuse and do all we can to prevent it from happening. There is an opportunity for our industry to continue to innovate and iterate the design of financial products to increase financial safety. Particularly at this time of year, we’re sensitive to the impact Christmas and end of year fatigue and commitments can have on family dynamics, increasing customer vulnerability. AMP Bank will continue to build on our support mechanisms and resources for customers, our broker and adviser partners, and the community.”

“In signing up to Respect & Protect, Coliban Water has updated its terms and conditions to make it clear the provision of water and sewerage, an essential service for everyone, is no place for financial abuse. We know there are occasions where perpetrators of family violence can use services like ours to threaten victim-survivors, maintain a system of coercive control, or even accrue debts in their name leaving them financially worse off. This makes it difficult for victims or survivors to seek help, or to leave. By updating our terms and conditions and ensuring our team is skilled and ready to help, we are discouraging perpetrators from using us and our services to continue the cycle of abuse.”

"Suncorp is taking steps to update our financial abuse and inappropriate behaviour terms and conditions to reflect that a bank account and an insurance policy is no place for financial or other types of abuse and using them in this way can have serious impacts."

“Concerns about financial abuse remains one of the top reasons customers get in touch with our customer support team, NAB Assist. If a NAB account holder is now found to be perpetrating financial abuse, we will be able to suspend or terminate their services. Financial abuse can take many forms including where an individual is denied access to their own funds or has their funds misused by another individual. This form of control can occur between couples, family members or relationships where one person is providing care for another. We’re taking a firm stand against financial abuse, and we aren’t resting there. We’re working with other banks to help develop a consistent approach across the industry.”

Financial safety alliance

Financial abuse doesn’t stop behind closed doors – unfortunately it can involve the misuse of products and services across a range of organisations.

That’s why we founded the Financial Safety Alliance in January 2026, a partnership between Flequity and four finance sector industry associations to tackle this insidious form of domestic abuse.

Together we’ll develop financial safety by design resources to help

Flequity is proud to have co-founded the One Generation business initiative, a program of Thriving Communities Australia, in November 2024.

This Australian business alliance against domestic and family violence brings together leading businesses from across modern essential services to take action for better and safer customer outcomes.

Flequity founder and CEO, Catherine Fitzpatrick, was the inaugural Chair of the One Generation Leaders Circle.

Our founder.

Catherine Fitzpatrick

Catherine Fitzpatrick is the international authority on financial safety by design.

A former bank senior executive, Catherine founded Flequity in 2023 to show that innovation in design can be the new frontier of social impact – tackling gender inequality while solving customer problems, promoting fairness and opening new doors for growth.

Her ground-breaking Designed to Disrupt® reports and #respectandprotect campaign have catalysed 60+ Australian businesses serving more than 20 million customers across the finance, telecommunications, water, energy, health, transport, education, and technology sectors to ban the misuse of their products and services for financial abuse.

Catherine is an entrepreneur, award-winning author, adviser, and advocate for change. She was named an AFR|Qantas Woman of Influence in 2018, winner of the 2024 Shared Value Individual Bravery Award and joint winner of 2024 National Consumer Advocacy Award, alongside the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety and CHOICE.

She is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the UNSW School of Social Sciences and an expert adviser to the Australian and NSW governments and the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation.