Westpac has announced it has commenced work on a new cloud-native transactional platform for its institutional bank (WIB), enlisting existing partner 10x Banking to help build the platform’s core technology.

Westpac confirmed it has signed a ‘Letter of Understanding’ with 10x to develop the new platform; the initial build is expected to take around nine months to complete, with new features to be progressively rolled out over time.

The new deal builds upon an existing three-year partnership between the big four bank and the UK-based core banking tech developer 10x, who was instrumental in the development of Westpac’s banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform. Westpac, at the time of the initial BaaS development deal, also took an undisclosed stake in 10x.

The BaaS, rolled out within just 18 months, is currently used by Afterpay and SocietyOne to support their various banking services offerings, including a range of deposit and loan products.

While details of the deal are to be confirmed, Westpac said the new 10x built platform will give its high-end institutional clients “a new market-leading digital experience with access to advanced liquidity management, cash flow forecasting and real-time payments processing”.

The new technology will also open the door to the addition of artificial intelligence tools to improve cashflow and finance monitoring, as well as links to fast payments rails.

Westpac Institutional Bank (WIB) delivers a broad suite of financial services to commercial, corporate, institutional and government customers operating in, and with connections to, Australia and New Zealand. The institutional banking arm represents around 10 per cent of Westpac’s net operating income.

Chief executive of WIB, Anthony Miller, said the new platform will support Westpac’s goal of providing the best possible transactional banking experience for WIB clients.

“Just as consumers are changing the way they bank, large institutional clients also need access to quick and secure digital transaction services,” Miller said.

“We’ve seen significant success working with 10x Banking and its modern technology to deliver our Banking-as-a-Service platform and we are now planning the next step in that evolution for our institutional clients.

“The new platform will enable us to improve productivity and cost-efficiencies while simplifying processes and making it easier for our customers to do business with us.”