Debut is on a mission to build a bank that benefits customers. That’s why we work with Kiwis while to design a uniquely practical and innovative banking experience. What can customers expect from a Debut account? Let’s get into it.
Debut is Banking On You
We recently launched a Living Roadmap on our Backstage Community Forum. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at account features we’re working on for Debut.
Rethink Banking
With Debut, we’ve set out to do banking better. A new beginning gives us an opportunity to stop and consider what people want from their bank and how we can deliver the most value. That’s why we’re diligent about gathering feedback from Kiwis, and making sure that we’re working on the stuff that matters. We’re exploring how we might improve many aspects of banking or even change it completely for an even better customer experience.
This article contains feedback from recent customer research.
A new kind of bank that benefits you
What is a bank? Think about it. At its most basic level, a bank should do the following:
- Store your money
- Keep your money safe
- Allow you to conveniently access your money
- Help you to save money
- Allow you to borrow money
For this post, we’re going to focus on the first three points and look at saving and borrowing money on another day because there’s a lot to unpack.
Banks should store your money.
Banks store your money, but most of them don’t help you to fight inflation – which in recent years has slowly eroded the value of money in your account.
What Kiwis are saying:
“Inflation is growing which makes us need more money to survive.”
“I would like the opportunity for my money to grow whilst it's sitting in my account.”
Debut stores your money and helps you grow it.
With Debut, your main account earns interest the way a savings account does. Customers earn interest on every dollar and those dollars earn interest too.
Banks should keep your money safe.
Banks are expected to keep people’s money safe. Most banks are also businesses and earn a portion of their revenue (and it’s a lot of revenue) from service fees, automatic charges and penalties.
What Kiwis are saying:
“Always nice to earn money without having to do work. Interest rates at banks on savings accs aren’t that high & often have penalties for withdrawals”
“It's good to be able to grow your wealth while still having the flexibility of access”
Debut keeps your money safe and doesn’t charge hidden fees.
Debut does not charge hidden fees. Customers can make withdrawals or spend their money at any time while still earning interest on their accounts. No lockups. No withdrawal fees. We actively work to optimise our operations to keep costs low, so we can pass savings and extra interest on to our customers.
Banks should make it convenient to access your money.
Nowadays, most banks offer customers a mobile app or website for day-to-day banking. However, many banks also still require customers to come into a branch on weekday, between 10am and 4pm for certain activities. Or, they may require that the customer call through to a call centre and wait (sometimes upwards of 40 minutes) to speak to a person. Not terribly convenient, if you ask me.
Debut brings a whole bank to your phone, so you can access everything, straight away. Easy peasy.
Debut allows customers to access all of the banking services easily from their phones. Next-generation mobile banking means the whole bank is accessible from your phone. Opening or closing an account, deactivating or applying for a payment card and verifying your identity can all be done through the app. No hunting for carparks. No waiting in queues on your phone. No being upsold insurance by your bank manager.
More to come
And we’re not stopping there. We want to make saving and growing your money effortless and make sure you can do so in a safe and secure way too. Stay tuned for more on this in a future spotlight.
Please note, Debut is not a registered bank under the Banking (Prudential Supervision) Act. This is about our future intentions. Investments with us are not supervised currently by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand
