Commonwealth Bank is expanding its program of working with third party providers to offer its customers a wider range of services, announcing investments in online shopping start-up Little Birdie and electricity retailer Amber.
CBA will work with Little Birdie to offer the bank’s customers “the best shopping deals from across the internet” and it will work with Amber to give customers access to real-time wholesale energy pricing.
It has taken a 23 per cent shareholdings in Little Birdie and 25 per cent of Amber, investing a total of A$50 million.
The formation of these relationships follows similar partnerships with doshii, a software company that integrates point of sale systems; Whitecoat, a healthcare payments business; and Quantium, which has developed CommBank IQ for the bank’s large business customers.
CBA chief executive Matt Comyn is pursuing a strategy of combining partnerships and digitisation to differentiate the bank’s retail and business services.
The bank is also pursuing opportunities created by open banking. It is the first of the big banks to become an accredited data recipient under the Consumer Data Right.
Comyn said these changes were being guided by customer behaviour. With 7.5 million of the bank’s 10 million customers now digitally active, services must be delivered online and via mobile.
“People want more access to insights that will give them control of their finances,” he said.
“We don’t see banking products as commodities and we want to move beyond customer service to trusted relationships with customers.”
The bank is using data to analyse and personalise services, with services such as assistance with savings goals.
Since the bank launched the Benefits Finder app feature in September 2019, which identifies such things as tax benefits, rebates and unclaimed superannuation, more than one million customers have used it to claim $500 million of benefits.
Another part of its strategy is to use these new services to link retail and business customers. For example, the bank is making Little Birdie available to its business customers so they can add their own shopping offers to the mix.
Comyn said the bank has turned its attention to the National Broadband Network. “The issue for us is to find a low cost and disruptive service provider and take a differentiated offer to our customers, just as we are doing with Amber.”