Volt and Xinja Lead Australian Neobank Shake-Up
(05 January 2021 – Australia) Following Xinja handing back its banking licence, Neobank Volt has partnered with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to build and run its Banking as a Service (BaaS) platform.
Volt was Australia’s first Neobank to receive a full authorised deposit taking institution (ADI) banking licence from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA), although the challenger bank has more than once delayed its own public launch. Almost two years on since announcing its ambitious strategic initiatives, the group remains firmly planted in the development and testing phase and has now decided to become a BaaS operator.
“Operating in a highly regulated industry and the goal of becoming a market leader, Volt’s platform technology places Volt at the forefront of Australian banks and positions us well for growth into the future. We’re delighted to partner exceptional global technology players like TCS whose commitment to continuing innovation will ensure Volt’s banking platform remains cutting-edge” stated Volt Founder and CEO Steve Weston.
“TCS is thrilled to be working with Volt to launch its next-generation payments digital banking platform Volt 2.0. The application architecture ensures anytime, anywhere digital access, scalability, resilience, high performance, and compliance” stated TCS Country Head in Australia and New Zealand, Vikram Singh.
After only one year, Xinja returned its ADI licence and is withdrawing transaction and savings account products. The Neobank plans to focus on other areas, such as its US share trading product Dabble.
"After a year marked by COVID-19 and an increasingly difficult capital-raising environment, and following a review of the market in Australia, Xinja has decided to withdraw the bank account and Stash (savings) account and cease being a bank. This was an incredibly hard decision" Xinja said a statement.
86 400 and ‘Up’ both have challenges with profitability while Judo Bank continues to buck the trend, going from strength to strength with a fresh raising of A$280 million in new equity, with two thirds of the raising coming from new major institutional investors offshore. The raising takes to A$510 million the value of equity raised by Judo Bank in 2020 and gives the bank a post-money valuation exceeding A$1.6 billion.
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