Customer technology awarded by AFR Boss for innovation

MyState Bank’s Insights and Auto-Savings functions have helped it place in the top 10 of the AFR BOSS Innovation Awards in the banking, superannuation and financial services category.

More than 700 businesses competed for the AFR BOSS awards in 10 categories. Now in their 10th year, the awards showcase the best innovations in Australia and New Zealand.

MyState Bank placed sixth in the banking, superannuation and financial services category. The full list of winners are available via the Australian Financial Review.

MyState Managing Director and CEO Melos Sulicich said the challenger bank has shown that digital innovation is paying off with its customers, who have embraced MyState Bank’s overhauled tech platform.

“We had 17,000 new customers join us last financial year, and the vast majority came via a digital channel. The bank has automated many processes and recently rolled out two high-tech products, giving customers smarter insights into their spending, and using those analytics to embed better auto-saving practices.”

The MyState Bank Insights and Auto-Saving functions proactively offer customers relevant, timely and engaging insights, as well as behavioural nudges to help customers manage their spending, and more easily save.

In its first year, these functions generated nearly 1.5 million personalised customer insights a month. These products have been launched to more than 110,000 customers helping them to better understand their purchasing, budgeting and cash flow planning.

“The MyState Bank mobile app and internet banking platform, were created to help people understand more about their finances, avoid missed bills or overdrawn accounts, and save more money.”

Mr Sulicich said the products and tools have helped customers save more than $1 million. MyState Bank’s top auto-saver, a customer in her 20s, has saved almost $10,000 in a year.

“Part of being the human way to bank means making sure there’s always a human focus at the centre of our innovation, and these features are designed by real people, for real people, to help us all spend and save smarter.”

It’s a focus on technology with the ‘human touch’ that will allow MyState Bank to roll-out further innovations for customers next year including PayTo, an upgrade to the New Payments Platform (NPP) and open banking, a system that puts privacy and control over financial data back into consumer hands.