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Regulation and technology are rapidly reshaping the merchant payments landscape. Facing growing competition from agile fintechs, Westpac needed to reinvent its proposition for business and institutional customers in order to achieve it's ambitious revenue targets.
Westpac engaged Sandbox on a strategic project with significant commercial stakes; exploring what its payments offer could look like in the future amidst a changing competitive market, building the business case for investment. The brief called for deep research including SMEs, commercial and institutional customers to challenge existing assumptions and reimagine Westpac's role in an increasingly open, connected payment ecosystem.
By mapping the competitive landscape alongside regulatory and technology scenarios, Sandbox identified where Westpac had the greatest opportunity to win, and where working with, rather than against, fintechs would allow them to compete more strongly.
As part of this process Sandbox engaged with organisations of all shapes and sizes including Telstra, AliPay, Guide Dogs Association and McDonald's. Bringing prototypes of possible future solutions into these sessions provided participants something tangible to react to, leading us to key insights around value and unmet needs.
These insights led to three high-potential innovation opportunities – stress-tested for desirability, viability and feasibility.
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Sandbox delivered foundational customer insight that challenged long-held internal assumptions, identified three innovation opportunities, and a future-state vision and business case tied to Westpac's $1B growth target. Critically, the project catalysed a shift in organisational mindset from product-centric thinking to a higher value customer experience and payments ecosystem approach.
Westpac went on to significantly modernise and grow its merchant payments offering. The project's most tangible legacy is mx51, a Westpac-backed fintech founded by the project sponsor which has since grown into a globally successful payments business.
