Westpac signs up digital lender SocietyOne for its Bank-as-a-Service (BaaS) Platform. Today’s announcement comes within 6 months of Afterpay joining the BaaS platform.
The partnership allows SocietyOne to offer its customers banking products, such as transaction accounts, to complement its existing personal loan offerings.
The new digital bank-as-a-service platform uses cloud-native technology from 10x Future Technologies and allows Westpac to work with leading companies to offer convenient and innovative banking services to Australians.
Back in October 2020, Westpac signed up Afterpay for its BaaS platform, offering new products and services to Afterpay customers. Similar to the agreement with Afterpay, Westpac – as the licensed authorised deposit-taking institution – will provide direct banking services.
Highlighting the platform’s “lost-cost, cloud-native technology”, Westpac’s GM for business development Macgregor Duncan said “the tie-up highlighted the growing opportunity to leverage the platform” to forge closer ties with partners and reach new customers.
Fintech innovation is changing banking in important ways and our new digital banking platform is part of our long-term strategy to support this trend and better respond to changing customer needs.
Peter King, CEO Westpac
Launched in 2012, SocietyOne was Australia’s first online peer-to-peer marketplace lender, matching lenders to borrowers of personal loans of up to $70,000.
CEO Mark Jones said signing on to the digital banking platform marked a “pivot point”, enabling SocietyOne to expand its range of financial products and services beyond personal loans via offering an “anchor” financial services product.
Scam-Detection Technology
Earlier this August, Westpac announced the rollout of new scam-detection technology with real-time alerts to protect customers from scams and frauds delivering real-time alerts covering all banking channels.
Quoting its research of August 2019, Westpac stated the average person loses $12,000 when scammed.
Westpac said the technology would be implemented to help across transactions in branches and digital and mobile banking channels.
