Westpac New Zealand’s partnership with New York start-up Moven will bring customer engagement to the forefront of innovation, according to the bank’s Chief Digital Officer Simon Pomeroy.

The Moven platform will give Westpac access to data that will enhance the customer experience through engagement, giving customers a real-time understanding of their finances in their new Augmented Reality application said Pomeroy.

Pomeroy and Brett King, founder and CEO of Moven, spoke to FST Media ahead of the Technology and Innovation – The Future of Financial Services conference to be held in Auckland next month, where Pomeroy will showcase more on the partnership – a first for the New York start-up outside the United States.

Pomeroy, who launched Westpac New Zealand’s Augmented Reality earlier this month at an FST Media conference labelled the partnership a “meeting of minds.”

According to King, consumer behaviour is changing rapidly saying, “what is broken is the customer experience. That is what we are really focused on.”

The application will put customer data back in the hands of the customer, giving them money management tools in a real-time feed, and the potential to make payments.

Pomeroy has made public his determination for Westpac to be the number one digital bank in New Zealand and across the globe, making it clear that the bank needs to disrupt itself. He has labelled the partnership with Moven a ‘game-changer’ for Westpac.

“A part of this partnership now is that we get all of Moven’s innovation integrated into our new internet banking platform which means Westpac NZ customers not only get all this capability that comes with it but are getting a truly unique, world class experience.”

Moven is widely considered a disruptor to the industry and has been dubbed the ‘downloadable bank provider’, but according to King, Moven is not interested in replacing the bank, “we want to replace the experience of banking on the phone, but we realise that at the back-end you need a secure value store.”

King predicts that over the next 10 years approximately one billion people who have never had access to a bank account before will have access to financial services because of technology such as the ‘downloadable bank’.

The future of Westpac’s application will see inclusion of biometric integration, with the bank working closely with its Australian counterpart as it launches finger-swipe login for iPhone users.