It’s a partnership of the Old and New. Australia’s oldest bank Westpac Group announced buy-now-pay-later champion Afterpay would be the first partner on its new digital banking platform.
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.
Acknowledging the importance of fintech innovation and Afterpay to Westpac, CEO Peter King said: “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.
“The platform allows us to combine our banking experience with the innovation of our partners to support new customer experiences.
Looking forward to work with Afterpay to deliver new products and services
The partnership will allow Afterpay to provide Westpac transaction and savings accounts and other cashflow management tools to its 3.3 million customers in Australia in Q2 2021.
Afterpay CEO, Anthony Eisen, said: “Together with the power of our retail platform, the latest banking technology from 10x, and the support of Westpac, we will begin by offering cash flow management in a simple way.
Also read: Digital Banking in Australia – Trends and Imperatives
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.
Also read: NAB: Workplace Technology turbocharged by COVID-19
Insourcing move delivers 1,000 jobs to Australia
Westpac announced bringing back all dedicated voice roles to Australia and creating 1,000 jobs in the process.
With the insourcing of all dedicated voice roles, Westpac noted the customer calls would be answered by someone in Australia. The process would be completed in the next 12 months.
Westpac is the latest enterprise to join a list of companies taking the insourcing pledge. Duluxgroup announced insourcing a major technology contract, creating 40 local jobs in IT.
Rolling out Software-Defined WAN
In a first of its kind by an Australian major bank, Westpac group announced rolling out software-defined Wide Area Networks in all its branches across Australia.
The infrastructure transformation program delivered in collaboration with Cisco and nbn is designed to deliver efficiencies and improve employee and customer experience.
“The new technology enables faster internet and improved technology capabilities in branches with high levels of security while reducing IT costs,” noted Westpac.
