volt bank partners with PayPal as Up launches with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank

The battle of the digital banks is on, with new offering Up launching today as volt bank announces a partnership with PayPal.

For volt bank, which was the first digital bank to receive a licence as a restricted authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) earlier this year, the partnership will allow new customers to log in using their PayPal credentials, with volt to also allow joint customers to link their bank account details to their PayPal account.

Steve Weston, CEO of volt bank, said that with the company building a bank “with customers at the centre”, the partnership with PayPal will help deliver on this goal, by creating a seamless user experience.

“volt bank isn’t constrained by legacy systems that have stifled innovation at incumbent banks and as we approach our customer launch, we will continue to show Australians there is a better way to manage their money and achieve their financial goals,” he said.

Mr Weston said engagement with PayPal’s millions of Australian customers brings immediate scale and is one of many innovative partnerships that it will unveil in the coming months.

With this the first partnership for PayPal with an Australian bank, Libby Roy, vice president and managing director of PayPal Australia, said, “The volt deal is another great example of how our partnerships are leveraging each companies’ core assets to deliver more choice and better payment experiences for customers.

“The volt partnership is our first bank partnership in the Australian market, allowing us to give the millions of existing PayPal customers across Australia more convenient ways to transact. Moving forward we hope to partner with more Australian organisations to continue to deliver choice and flexibility for joint customers.”

Meanwhile, also launching today is Up, a digital bank founded in Melbourne by Dom Pym and Grant Thomas and their tech development firm, Ferocia.

The idea for Up was born out of their experience creating a digital banking platform for Bendigo Bank; this link has also come in handy now, with the startup able to avoid the process of getting its own license by linking up with Bendigo and Adelaide bank to provide the licensed financial products to its customers.

“Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s strong track-record provides us with credible banking partner, coupled with the creative licence to design Up in the most ‘non-bank’ way possible. It has meant we can offer customers a new way to manage their money ahead of everyone else,” Pym said.  

“The alternative would have been to apply for a restricted banking license and be in the same boat as all other upcoming digital banks – unable to launch in any meaningful way until at least 2019.”

The bank has run a two month trial with more than 1,500 beta users: according to Up, customers saved over $250,000 and reached transactions of more than $2.2 million.

Among Up’s features is ‘Naked Truth’, providing things like merchant ID for all businesses, including name, location, and logo, or giving users the ability to fill in such details themselves; in turn, users can see how much they have spent with one merchant over a certain period of time.

‘Kill Bills’, meanwhile, will show a user their upcoming regular charges or direct debits automatically, and in turn generate reports aimed at helping users budget.

Image: Dom Pym and Grant Thomas. Source: Supplied.