Westpac banking-as-a-service platform gets a CEO

Westpac has appointed Damien MacRae as its new chief executive officer to lead its banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform.

The national bank is already underway to officially launch its platform with the first consumer deposit product to be released soon.

Its BaaS platform was developed on the core banking stack of UK-based 10x Banking, enabling Westpac to offer white-labelled banking products to third parties.

In a post on LinkedIn Westpac chief executive for specialist businesses and group strategy Jason Yetton announced the bank appointed MacRae to the chief executive spot.

“I am pleased to announce that Damien MacRae has been appointed chief executive officer, Westpac Banking as a Service,” Yetton said.

“Fintech innovation is changing banking in important ways and Banking as a Service is part of our long-term strategy to support this trend and better respond to changing customer needs.

Yetton said the internal appointment of MacRae “comes at an exciting time for the team”.

“Banking as a Service is a growth opportunity for the Group and a key priority this year is to increase our customer base and build out our platform offering following agreements with our first three partners - Afterpay, SocietyOne and Flare.”

Westpac most recently added HR software Flare to the platform in early December last year.

MacRae has been with the major bank for nine months, most recently as managing director for Westpac Pacific and specialist finance.

Prior to this MacRae spent just over three year with funeral home and crematoria operator InvoCare, including a 10 month stint its deputy chief executive officer.

He also worked for Experian from 2014 to 2017 as the chief operating officer for the Asia Pacific, overseeing customer Experience, sales, product, consulting, analytics and marketing.

MacRae also spent over 12 years with Westpac from 2003 – 2015 working in a variety of roles across multiple general manager positions in business banking as well mortgage related roles.