Customer-owned Australian bank

02. The client

Customer-owned Australian bank

A well-established Australian customer-owned bank serving a growing customer base across the country. With customer expectations increasingly centred on fast, intuitive and digital-first lending experiences, the bank needed to ensure its next lending platform would support both its immediate requirements and longer-term growth ambitions.

03. The problem

The right decision under pressure

The timeline was fixed. However, moving quickly without the right foundations would simply trade one problem for another.

The replacement platform needed to support faster lending decisions, greater automation and continuous improvement, without creating unnecessary technical debt, commercial risk or compliance exposure.

The bank needed more than a platform selection. It required a defensible decision that could be presented to the board, withstand procurement and independent review, and provide confidence as the organisation moved into contract negotiations.

04. Our Approach

We started with the full cost picture and held vendors to the standard the environment required

Before forming a view on the target platform, we mapped the current state in detail, including existing capabilities, limitations and the full cost of ownership across procurement, implementation, operations and ongoing improvement.

This gave the board a more complete and transparent basis for comparison than a conventional cost-benefit analysis. Following approval of the business case, we developed the request for proposal and narrowed the market to two strategic pathways: vendor-managed platforms and platforms that could progressively bring maintenance and configuration capability in-house.

We then conducted detailed discovery with shortlisted vendors and assessed each supplier against a rigorous set of requirements. This included not only technical capability, but also the ability to operate within a highly regulated banking environment.

A practical demonstration helped distinguish the preferred solution. While some vendors described lengthy change-request processes, the recommended provider demonstrated its ability to configure a working change during the session, giving the bank confidence in the platform’s flexibility and ongoing manageability.

05. Outcome

A procurement process that passed every test

Contract negotiations were completed with full consideration of the bank’s regulatory, security and risk obligations. An independent review of the procurement process and resulting contracts was undertaken before signing, with no further action required.

The bank entered into a contract for a lending platform aligned with its growth ambitions and supported by a sustainable commercial structure, rather than one designed only to achieve implementation.

The new platform provides a foundation to reduce the time required to approve loan applications, support continuous improvement without extensive engineering effort, and integrate third-party services as the bank’s needs evolve.