Westpac says fintech partnerships paying off

Westpac’s $100 million investment in the Reinventure venture capital fund is paying off for the bank, according to group CEO Brian Hartzer.

Reinventure has made 20 investments in areas including distributed ledger technology, payments, data analytics, digital currencies, social networking and P2P lending.

Those investments are increasingly a strategic asset for Westpac, Hartzer told a briefing on the bank’s first half results.

“These investments have helped build Westpac’s reputation as a good partner for fintech companies and this is now paying off in our core business,” the CEO said.

He cited as an example the launch in April of Presto Smart, which integrates point-of-sale systems with merchant payment terminals.

“Presto was built in partnership with Assembly Payments, which was one of our first Reinventure investments,” Hartzer said.

“While it’s early days, the market response has been good and given many of the POS systems are international, we see some genuine global opportunities for Assembly Payments off the back of these.”

Hartzer told the briefing on Westpac’s results for the six months ended 31 March that the bank managed to save $32 million in the first half through better management of its technology contracts as part of its efficiency drive.

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Source: Westpac says fintech partnerships paying off – Computerworld