Westpac reveals the dominance of mobile banking as its core digital channel

Data from Westpac reveals that 84 per cent of digital banking now takes place on a smartphone or tablet, with nine in 10 Australians believing that digital channels are the easiest methods of completing their everyday banking tasks.

Its first internet banking service launched in 2005, with smartphone banking following in 2008, and its first iPad app launched in 2010, by which time about a million of its customers were using digital banking services.

• Subscribe to Digital Nation Australia's twice-weekly newsletter

The bank announced a new app last week that seeks to capitalise on the pandemic accelerated uptake of digital banking services which will be rolled out to over 800,000 Android customers and features enhanced security, personalisation, improved design, and simpler navigation tools.

“Mobile has become the channel of choice for customers, with more than 84 per cent of consumer and business digital banking taking place on a smartphone or tablet,” said Westpac Chief Executive Consumer & Business Banking, Chris de Bruin.

“We wanted to create an app where we put the customer in control and give them on-demand access to their finances, where and when they want.”

Customers with mobile devices running Android 10 and beyond will be upgraded to the new app following trials of over 20,000 customers and the app being introduced to 1.7 million IOS customers earlier in the year.

Since introducing the new app to IOS users, de Bruin says that Westpac has seen a strong uptake, serving 700,000 daily users and 90,000 Smart Search users each week.

A primary focus of the new upgrade is the bolstering of digital safety and security within the app.

“Westpac offers customers a market-leading digital card security feature through our dynamic CVC which issues a new temporary code every 24 hours via the app to help protect customers from fraud when shopping online,” said de Bruin.

“Since launching the app we have seen a 178 per cent increase in digital card usage, and customers viewed the dynamic CVC more than 400,000 times each month.

de Bruin said that digital solutions will continue to be a priority for Westpac going forward and is crucial to meeting the changing needs of customers.