One year on from licence and 86 400 accelerates beyond everyday banking

Twelve months on from obtaining its licence, Australia’s first smartbank, 86 400, is entering its next phase of growth as it completes its rollout of everyday banking products and features. The next phase will focus on delivering even greater insights to help customers take control of their money.

Since July 2019, when it was awarded a full banking licence by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), 86 400 has been busy building a smarter alternative to the Big Four banks, averaging a new app update every two weeks. 86 400 now has more than 225,000 accounts on its platform, and is progressing ahead of target to reach 500,000 by the end of the financial year. To date, it has more than $300m in customer deposits, has processed more than $1bn in transactions, with 650,000 transactions and balance updates taking place each day.

86 400 is the only neobank in the Australian market to offer home loans, and remains the only digital mortgage for brokers. It already has $40m in loans settled and awaiting settlement.

Tens of thousands of Australians are already benefiting from 86 400’s smart products and features. Every day 86 400 predicts 33,000 upcoming bills for customers, helping them save an average of $500 each year in unused subscriptions.

By the end of July, 86 400 will have delivered all of its everyday banking features, including scheduled and recurring payments. The bank’s next phase of growth will expand into new segments such as shared finances and deliver further insights into individual spending and savings patterns, helping them get more from their money regardless of where they bank.

During this first year of operation 86 400 has also focused on building out both sides of the ledger, transforming the traditional home loans process with the only digital mortgage offering for the Australian broker market. Having moved through its pilot phase late last year, the mortgage side of the business is primed for growth and will be announcing a major new partner very soon which will supercharge progress towards its $2bn target by the end of 2021.

Growth under lockdown

While coronavirus has caused disruption to the banking industry as a whole, 86 400 has continued its rapid growth under lockdown, seamlessly transitioning to remote working.

Since March, the smartbank has hired a further ten full-time team members to accelerate its product and feature development, launching five new feature updates (push notifications, integration with Zip Pay and Zip Money, interest rate tile, total savings graph update and create PayID), completing a major upgrade to the core technologies powering the 86 400 app, Angular and Ionic, as well as introducing two marketing campaigns: Pay It Forward and refer a friend.

“With so much economic uncertainty at the moment, it’s more important than ever Australians feel on top of their finances. Our next phase of growth is going to do just that – deliver the features they wouldn’t expect from a traditional bank, which will help customers budget better, spend wiser and save more. And with great interest rates, and smart features like our upcoming bills prediction and Energy Switch, we’re confident we can help each customer save as much as $3,000 over the next 12 months,” said Robert Bell, CEO of 86 400. “Australians have long called out for a smarter approach to banking, and together that’s exactly what we are building.”

86 400 has already received over 10,000 pieces of customer feedback – including email suggestions, votes on its public roadmap and NPS survey responses – all of which have helped develop the products and experiences already available to the public. With a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 47.4, 86 400’s customer satisfaction levels are top of the market for a financial services firm, and well ahead of the Big Four banks’ average of 2.8.

“In a year full of achievements, one we’re most proud of is team engagement,” said Anthony Thomson, Chairman of 86 400. “Take it from me, building a bank is not an easy thing to do and it’s great to see the number of those who’d recommend 86 400 as a place to work has risen three-fold since licence. Add this to our incredible customer satisfaction scores and it’s clear we must be doing something right.”

The 86 400 team has grown by more than 25% since receiving its licence, from 85 in July 2019, up to 109 full-time team members in July this year.

To fuel further growth, 86 400 will soon begin a Series B capital raise by continuing to work with Morgan Stanley, with strong early interest from sophisticated Australian and international institutional investors. The smartbank closed a successful Series A round in April, raising $34.5m and taking total capital raised to $90m.