We hosted our first AMA - Ask Me Anything livestream session. A huge thank you to everyone who sent us questions and to all those who tuned in to the stream. Questions and answers have been summarised below, or you can watch the full stream back on the video below.
Q: When is Debut opening, please?
1:33 – Posted by Aphrodite.
Oh man. We absolutely cannot wait for Debut to launch either. Officially, Debut is launching a little bit later this year, starting with a pre-release version which will first be made available to those on the waitlist.
All of the features we’re working on can be found on our road map. You can actually go in and tell us what you think and if you think there’s another way to go about it. It’s all open.
If you haven’t already joined the waitlist, please do! We’ll also keep you updated every step of the way with how we’re going with building Debut and invite those interested in contributing to Debut to share their thoughts and ideas on our Backstage Community.
There are also ways to move up the waitlist and we regularly run prize draws and other competitions.
Q: How hard is it to set up a bank in New Zealand and are the government departments that you have to deal with helpful?
3:15 – Posted by Felix Lee.
Building a bank is no easy task. There’s lots of work that goes on behind the scenes and there’s a lot to learn as well. We are building a bank from scratch, which is not a simple sort of business.
We have been very lucky to have some really smart people who have spent their lives in banking and finance. They got sick of the bureaucracy and also just want to build something fresh. Our legal team is also very skilled and some of the best in New Zealand.
We’re determined to build Debut in a trusted and respectful way. So, we keep talking to the regulators and keep on updating them with the progress.
Q: What’s the progress around getting certified as an official bank?
Posted by Jason Sebastian.
Derrick:
Essentially, it is a very lengthy process. Right now we’re basically looking at what the community actually wants from a banking product, because we don’t just want to charge ahead and create something that we think people are going to want - we want to find out what they actually want. Of course we’ve done a lot of research, but it’s also a continuously emerging thing.
That’s the point behind the community. It’s a place where we can share what we’re working on. That’s why we’ve got our public roadmap – and it will always be public – so that you guys can see every step of the way where those features are at.
We’re determined to launch Debut later this year and put our learnings into practice. While we’re testing and iterating on those early version features, we’ll continue working in the background towards an official banking license.
Sulabh:
I think it’s good to get out there and have the community involved. We don’t want to build a “me-too” product. You know, banking is not just what people see on the website or on their mobile. It’s a lot deeper than that.
We’re trying to challenge every component and rebuild it in a way that is much more optimised and efficient.
We want to be the best bank and make sure we put people first.
What savings products are you thinking about launching that might be competitive in the market?
8:08 – Posted by Jason Sebestian.
I think that when you look at savings holistically, there are a few things happening. There’s the strategy, which is basically identifying, what your savings goals and what the timeframe is to achieve those goals.
Then, the second thing is moving money into your savings goals, making it faster to save or optimising savings by channelling the money from your main account into your savings goals.
There’s a whole range of stuff we’re seeing from our customers in our research and interviews. From using Excel sheets to setting up direct debits and so on. There’s even more. You need to ask yourself with whatever savings you have, what growth are you getting on those savings - so, basically your interest rates.
What we’ve seen in the market is that other financial businesses tend to have a very archaic perspective on saving. It’s very account-based. For example, there are a lot of legacies. So, even in this high interest environment, your mortgage interest rates have gone up, compared to the official cash rate, but your interest on savings is not growing at anywhere near the same kind of pace.
So, a long answer, but what we are trying to do is to just look at that savings experience holistically and trying to create a seamless experience where it moves away from that account mentality to a more goal-oriented one. Also, you should have better returns on your savings as well, so your savings grow automatically and faster.
To recap that: We’re looking at building savings functions that are more tied to a set objective and they also accrue better interest over time as well.
Sidebar on customer feedback
11:14 – We’ve been noticing trends around how people have hacked together their own sort of ways to manage money. I’ve been finding this really interesting because I do it myself as well. Hacking, or basically just putting together different accounts for different things and setting up automation and sometimes you have to use another bank because your main bank doesn’t let you set up a transfer in a particular way.
Or sometimes, they don’t offer you the best rates, or they lose your money. A lot of times, people are scared of term deposits because they have the sense that they’re going to be locked out of their money. And what happens if there’s an emergency? And banks can charge really heavy fees if you unlock your deposits. You could argue that that’s how the products are structured, but that’s what we’re here to challenge. That used to be the way, but maybe we can find a better way which is more streamlined with the needs of people today.
Who founded Debut and who is behind it?
12:43 – Essentially, you’re talking to him. It’s Sulabh Sharma, and the other co-founder is Sheenu Chawla. They started Debut in Auckland and they saw that banks overseas were about a decade ahead in some ways than the banks here in New Zealand and they saw an opportunity to really bring much better value and improve what it is like for customers.
We’ve been hearing on the news lately that not everyone is happy with the current state of banking. So, it’s a good challenge to have.
A Quick Note About Our Card Design Competition
14:06 – We’ve got our card competition underway, our design card competition, and I’m really excited to say that we’ve started getting some really great entries in there and we’ll be posting those up pretty soon on the Community as well.
This card competition is a great way for everyday Kiwis to actually contribute and share their ideas of what they think should represent New Zealand in something we carry in our wallets with us. Normally, the bank chooses the card for you, so this is a cool way, I think, to let people contribute to that idea.
You don’t even need to be a designer. The competition is open to anyone, even kids. Anyone can join. It’s all for fun, so don’t spend a lot of time on it. If you have an idea, put it in and who knows? The community will get a chance to vote on it, so everyone gets a vote, and you might win $1,000 bucks.
Our internal teams are also really excited to see, and who knows what it could lead to. We’re looking forward to it.
How do you pronounce Debut?
16:06 – This is a funny one. Different people say it in different ways. Personally, I say, “day-byoo,” but I’ve heard “day-boo,” “day-bit,” different things. However you want to say it. It’s up to you, I guess.
We really love this name. It represents who we are and what we’re trying to build for our customers.
Will Debut let me create a payment tag? For example, I want to send a payment request or to pay a friend. Sending a banking account number is too long.
17:06 – Posted by David Harvey.
We will be getting into all of that in more detail as we start discussing more and more features on our community. So, hang tight, we’re still in the research process with this feature.
But, speaking hypothetically, instead of using a long bank account number, there could be an alternative where you could use a handle. That person would be authenticated with a photo, their name and other details. Probably, it should link back to a number to verify, especially for sending larger amounts.
But it could work if you want to flick a friend five bucks for a coffee or twenty bucks for dinner. I think that would be a cool feature to have, to just be able to DM people money. 100%.
If you have any other questions, please send them through to hello[at]MakingDebutBank.co.nz. See you all again soon!
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
