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Westpac Group has inked a partnership with Afterpay as part of the expansion of its new digital banking platform, boosting its presence in the fintech space.
With the partnership, Westpac will be able to provide its customers digital transaction and savings account as well as cashflow management tools. The bank is expected to roll out these services by the second quarter of 2021.
"The platform allows us to combine our banking experience with the innovation of our partners to support new customer experiences," said Westpac CEO Peter King.
Westpac employs the cloud-native technology from UK-based 10x Future Technologies in its new digital bank-as-a-service platform. This allows the bank to collaborate with other companies and provide "innovative banking services" to its customers.
Anthony Eisen, CEO of Afterpay, said the partnership with Westpac will simplify the way it offers cashflow management tools.
"Afterpay is in a unique position to extend and deepen the relationship with our customers and help them to manage their money more seamlessly through savings and budgeting tools," he said.
Westpac first announced its plans of rolling out a bank-as-a-service platform with 10x Future Technologies late last year.
"The 10x platform will be a ground-up, modern banking platform that gives us the ability, through partnerships, to begin to extend our banking capability beyond what we do in our core business," said former Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer during the announcement.
Macgregor Duncan, Westpac’s general manager of corporate and business development, said the partnership with 10x Future Technologies is part of the bank’s plans of shoring up its digital capabilities.
"A key focus for banks is improving customer service while lowering overall costs, and technology lies at the heart of that," he said.
"A modern core banking stack allows you to support customer needs with new data and AI applications, while also significantly lowering the cost-to-serve. And that’s what 10x is. While it’s still young technology, we see this as a way for Westpac to test and explore new capabilities that might become directly relevant to Westpac’s core business in the future."
