Accelerating banking innovation with team augmentation
Westpac leveraged our team augmentation model to respond to the disruption of Buy Now Pay Later services. By rapidly scaling their UX capacity, we accelerated the launch of a compliant, competitive financial product targeted at the next generation of customers.
In just three months, our collaboration resulted in the launch of the Flex Card, a digital-first product tailored for a younger demographic, used by thousands of Australians today.
About Westpac, Australia’s first bank and oldest company
As Australia's oldest bank and one of the major players in the country's financial landscape, Westpac has over 200 years of experience. Operating across Australia and New Zealand, Westpac serves over 14 million global customers and employs around 40,000 people.
For the past 7 years, Airteam have been Westpac’s chosen design partner, utilising our team augmentation services to support their business as they innovate.
Navigating the rise of buy now pay later
At the time of our engagement, the fintech landscape was rapidly evolving with the emergence of new 'buy now pay later' product offerings. Westpac recognised the need to innovate to stay competitive and align its services with evolving consumer preferences while providing an ethical and compliant alternative to emerging technologies.
Westpac’s existing customer base skewed towards an older generation, and Westpac management recognised the need to appeal to a younger market segment to secure its future. This required not only a response to new fintech product offerings on the market, but their branding and digital experiences more broadly.
Westpac’s UX team were thereby set the task of devising a response to the rapid rise of buy now pay later services.
Project goals:
- Introduce a competitive service offering.
- Attract a younger audience.
- Understand the complexities and nuances of Westpac’s financial space.
- Enhance their digital experience.
- Ensure regulatory compliance.
The team was given one week to present their ideas back to leadership. With internal team resources spread across multiple projects, and legal and regulatory requirements impacting their speed of delivery, it was clear additional team resources were needed fast.
Swift team augmentation for rapid product development
With an established partnership already in place, Westpac engaged Airteam to rapidly scale their delivery capacity. Leveraging our team augmentation model, within days our Head of UX Nick Simpson was integrated into Westpac’s team.
In just one week, Nick had worked with Westpac's internal team to rapidly assess, ideate and generate design concepts for the new service. These concepts were presented to Westpac’s leadership and a direction for the new product was chosen.
The design concepts then underwent several rounds of rapid testing with real users to validate their feasibility, user-friendliness, and market appeal. Feedback from testing helped refine the concepts further.
A significant part of the project involved mapping out the user journeys and business logic for different scenarios and edge cases. This included ensuring compliance and addressing regulatory requirements while maintaining a low-friction user experience.
Finally, Nick collaborated closely with Westpac's development team to ensure the concepts could be realised within Westpac's technical infrastructure and regulatory framework.
From idea to launch in three months with team expansion
By utilising our team augmentation services, Westpac were able to rapidly create a financially-supportive product that provided a more ethical alternative to other buy now pay later products.
Through an iterative process of ideation, research, design, and testing, the team successfully developed not only a digital-first credit card, but a new set of visuals and customer journeys that integrated with Westpac’s existing look and feel.
The result was the successful introduction of the Flex Card, which is still on the market today.
From problem to product in three months
Our augmentation of Westpac’s UX team came off the back of many previously successful project collaborations. Today, we continue to support their team as they need, successfully launching many great products to the Australian market.
Need to accelerate your product roadmap? Partner with our senior design team to scale your delivery capabilities. Get in touch today via our contact form.
