Banking-as-a-Service

Westpac’s banking pedigree dates back to the early 1800s, yet its ambitions are squarely set on a digital future. Australia’s first bank has embarked on a journey to deliver a completely fresh approach for its customers, and those serving them. It wanted to explore new business models leveraging digital-native technologies, that would support its customer-centric approach. It wanted to challenge itself to different ways of working with new partners in and beyond financial services to reach new customers.

This was about building something completely new and unleashing unencumbered innovation.

In partnership with 10x Banking and Amazon Web Services (AWS), Westpac launched a unique Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform in a staggeringly quick 18 months. The platform allows the bank to offer digital banking products through a network of partners and deliver new services in and beyond banking. The bank handles the banking products and partners use their brand to enhance the customer experience with hyper-personal engagements. This brings financial services right to where the customer is.

‘Under the hood’, a fully configurable microservices architecture sits on a cloud native core banking platform. This enables real-time connectivity and high levels of responsiveness to in-the-moment client needs, shifting market trends and conditions.

The 10x technology stack – SuperCore™ – is at the heart of this BaaS project and is deployed on market-leading AWS Cloud Services. This enables fast and seamless access to digital services that can help nurture customer loyalty. It means Westpac has a nimble and scalable offer that can deploy new products within minutes.

The plan was to use fully configurable microservices architecture to provide a cloud native core banking platform. This would enable the bank to leverage APIs, making it easier to navigate and harness customer trends, market conditions and regulatory requirements.

The cloud native 10x Banking platform helped Westpac realise its vision of creating a brand new and customer-first business model. This is also part of Westpac’s broader plan to move into new markets. 10x and Westpac have a common goal around fundamentally transforming how the bank uses technology to improve customers’ financial well-being.

Westpac knows its strengths. This project wasn’t about reinventing the wheel or attempting innovation for innovation’s sake. By focusing on opportunities now available thanks to open banking and advances in technology, Westpac could capitalise on the many benefits of Banking-as-a-Service. For example, a significant benefit to having an open, secure, scalable and agile platform is being able to facilitate the smooth onboarding of market-specific partners. This allows the bank to host new white-labelled opportunities.

And with an open playground for banking capabilities, you create new features, attract new customers, and adapt to constantly changing scenarios. In a heartbeat. Because 10x works fast. We deployed an expert team to build the full-service BaaS platform for Westpac in just 18 months. This comprised a core local team, the client development team, and engineering teams in the UK headquarters.

But speed isn’t everything, we also ensured frictionless integration with other technology solutions using 10x SmartAdapters.

Thanks to the BaaS core banking platform, Westpac’s speed and agility is supercharged. The bank has already secured a number of partnerships, including the recently launched transactions and savings accounts with digital lender SocietyOne. HR partner Flare will be next to offer customers Westpac’s next-generation banking technology at speed across shared customer bases. It also means a step change in personalisation, as partners bring innovative, truly personalised user experiences into the mix because of their deep understanding of the customers they serve.

For Westpac, this means access to new customer segments and adds another dimension to its business via flexible, scalable, multi-tenant software architecture. The cost to acquire and the cost to serve customers has been transformed.

Westpac’s BaaS platform launch was a technology endeavour, with a clear business vision, underscored by its commitment to the customer. The Westpac and 10x foundational partnership has created a flexible, next-generation platform, that is already attracting industry award recognition.

“Embedded finance is an exciting and growing opportunity and Westpac’s partnership with 10x has allowed us to offer products to customers through a transformative business model. We are reaching new customers when and how they want it, and in the palm of their hand.”

Damien MacRae, CEO - Banking as a Service