About
Cost of living pressures are squeezing customers with almost two thirds (64%) of Australians saying they have been affected by cost-of-living pressures. Westpac wanted to find a way to support customers with managing their finances in an easy, intuitive way. We introduced a new Money Management Tool in the Westpac app to help empower customers and give them more control over their money.
Innovation presentation
A survey conducted by Westpac revealed more than three quarters of Australians believe digital banking can help them keep better track of their money. With rising prices across a broad range of products and services households are increasingly looking for ways to earn more and cut back on spending.
We wanted to quickly provide a simple, integrated tool that allowed customers to better track and manage their finances. To expedite the delivery of this service, Westpac acquired start-up, MoneyBrilliant, and integrated both its technology and team into the Westpac Group to build a Money Management Tool in the Westpac App.
The Money Management Tool was launched to customers in September 2022. The features include the ability to track and categorise expenses, budgeting tools to monitor monthly income and outgoings, and personalised insights to help customers make better financial decisions.
Since launch, the Money Management Tool has continued to evolve to include features such as Transaction Tagging, so customers can easily identify and group expenses into buckets such as tax, holiday, or personal. They can then use these tags to filter their spending insights to better understand their financial position.
The next stage of Money Management launching in late 2023 is to help customers identify potential savings and have a better overview of when their bills are due, through two new personalised money management tools:
Savings Finder: Helps customers discover potential savings from their existing recurring payments for subscriptions and other expenses. This can help them identify opportunities to cut back on non-essential goods and services.
Bills Calendar: Allows customers to add upcoming payments to their bills calendar and receive alerts when these bills are due, helping them better track and manage their expenses.
Uniqueness of the project
We strategically acquired start-up MoneyBriliant and all its team to fast track this money management capability to customers, understanding that it would be particularly useful in the current economic climate. When we acquired MoneyBrilliant we also inherited the digital capability and IP that took six years to develop. This simplified the work and time required by Westpac to deliver to customers.
Within 12 months of acquiring the MoneyBrilliant team, Westpac had designed a new CX and UX navigation, integrated the digital technology to the app, performed customer testing and launched successfully to customers.
