Briefs: Stone & Chalk appoints CEO, family guarantees on the rise, MyState appoints GM, Government v 14 April 2015 2:51PM Banking Day staff Briefs, Alex Scandurra has been appointed chief executive of Sydney's new fintech hub, Stone & Chalk. Australian born Scandurra was most recently the head of strategic partnerships and the accelerator program at Barclays Bank. He has also worked as head of infrastructure sharing at Nokia. Stone & Chalk chair Craig Dunn said 120 fintech companies had applied for residency at the hub since its launch last month. National Australia Bank has reported a big increase in the number of its first-home buyer customers using a family guarantee. NAB said 6.7 per cent of FHBs are using a family guarantee facility, compared with 4.8 per cent in 2010. NAB's family guarantee allows customers to place money in a term deposit account and use it as security for another family member's loan. Banking and wealth management group, MyState, has appointed Chris Thornton general manager of product and marketing. Thornton has moved from Rams Financial Group, where he was head of brand and marketing. MyState said in a statement that it was looking for Thornton to focus on new technology and "data driven insights". Cabinet has ruled out the privatisation of Centrelink's payments processing engine, vetoing one of the key IT recommendations of its National Commission of Audit. IT news reports Human Services Minister Marise Payne gave an "absolute assurance" that ownership of the system and management of its data would remain "within government control". Outsourcing the nuts and bolts that calculate and deliver roughly A$100 billion in payments every year was put forward in the final report of the National Commission of Audit. A tender is now underway to replace a 30-year old core processing system for pension and similar payments. ANZ said it bought Shout for Good Pty Ltd, a digital fundraising platform that enables individuals to donate money to over 150 charities. The purchase price was not disclosed. Shout chief executive Jane Martino and chief technology officer Charlie Carpinteri will join ANZ. Mortgage aggregator Connective has appointed Michael Goerner as head of Connective Home Loans. Goerner was previously head of business development. He was head of commercial lending at Liberty Financial for four years before that.