Behind the Scenes

A Big Debut Progress Update

An audience watches a curtain opening on a stage.
Sep 15, 2023

We’re super excited to share some progress updates with you today! If we’ve been a bit quieter this month, it’s only because the team has had their heads down as we work through the latest developments for Debut.

Debut app updates

With the design stage now behind us, we’re focused on development. We’re looking forward to progressing to limited testing and user testing next month.

Debut UX design 👨‍🎨

All the user interface and interactive design aspects have been worked out, and we’re now finished with the final design phase. 🎉 Whoop!

Development 👩‍💻

Development has ramped up to full pace, and we’re making awesome progress. 🎸 We estimate we should be ready for testing within the next month! 👀

Testing 🤳

Starting next month, we will randomly reach out to Green Room members and others, inviting them to enrol in our Beta Programme.

Payment cards

We’re determined to launch with an amazing card experience. It’s taken some doing to coordinate with all of the parties to make sure we can bring Kiwis a unique, safe and easy payment card while building in thoughtful, next-gen features that allow room to grow.

Card issuer and processing 🛍

We’re incredibly excited to share that we have confirmed that Debut’s card issuer and processor facilities are now integrated and ready.

Card design 💳

The card design has also now been finalised. We’re ecstatic to share that the cards are now in printing. We’ve taken direction from the community while balancing costs and eliminating fees for customers. 

The business of banking

The most exciting parts are the nifty features and the stuff you see, but there are many other things that go into building a bank that don’t get as much air time. Behind the scenes, there are a lot of people involved with helping to bring Debut to life.

Partnerships 👯

We have partnered with a trusted provider to facilitate accelerated growth options for customers inside of Debut. We’ll be able to share more about this partnership publicly in due course, but basically, it’s good news. These folks are very experienced in helping Kiwis grow their wealth. We couldn’t be happier to have them as a growth option accessible directly inside of Debut.

Regulatory compliance 🏢

A small yet significant win; we’re pleased to announce that Debut’s regulatory journey is officially “in progress”.  We have finished with a log of the groundwork leading up to what is ultimately a lengthy regulatory and compliance process. These things don’t happen overnight. There are plenty of meetings with lawyers, consultants and regulatory officials. Still, we’re also excited to see some progress in this area.

Preparing for launch 🎬

As we eagerly prepare for launch, we are also prioritising rigorous testing and security compliance checks so that everything runs safely and smoothly. That being said, we seem to be moving in the right direction, and Debut is still on track to launch this side of Christmas. We’re so grateful to the amazing support we’ve received from all of you along the way and can’t wait to start inviting waiting list members to get hands-on with Debut in the coming months.

Remember, you can move up the waiting list by inviting friends and family to join, too. You’ll find sharing codes in our Recap emails.

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Derrick Olivier is Head of Community and Growth at Debut
Debut is the best way to save, track, budget and understand your money.
We’re doing something that’s never been done in New Zealand. We’re building a bank carefully, thoughtfully and with feedback from our customers. This is only the beginning.