Australian Payments Plus (AP+) was formed by uniting the nation’s leading payment operators - BPAY Group, eftpos and NPP Australia. This strategic alignment enables AP+ to foster a more coordinated approach within the Australian payments sector and to effectively respond to the evolving impact of bold new technologies and shifting customer needs - helping shape the future of payments in Australia.
Recognizing the importance of customer experience in driving business success and change in the payments sector, AP+ turned to Thoughtworks to deliver two critical streams of work with BPAY and NPP Australia (NPPA).
NPPA is responsible for operating Australia’s national real-time payments infrastructure that processes over 1.5 billion transactions per annum. Its latest innovation, PayTo, offers fast and secure account-to-account initiation enabling funds to move between bank accounts instantly. Customers can use PayTo in a range of everyday transactions such as utility bills, flight bookings, subscriptions and digital wallet top-ups. Adding fresh competition to a dynamic payments ecosystem, NPPA’s goal is to ensure widespread adoption of PayTo across Australia.
Challenge
As a new payment solution in its early stages of market penetration, the success of PayTo hinges on its adoption by merchants and billers. The more widely PayTo is available, the more opportunities for customer usage, which in turn increases the user base and strengthens its position in the market. Key to adoption is ensuring a cohesive and consistent user experience. For customers, an inconsistent user experience across different merchants can quickly discourage continued usage, while any friction or confusion in implementing PayTo for merchants can prevent adoption.
AP+ saw a critical need to establish a shared standard for merchants and billers, and reached out to Thoughtworks to develop new customer experience (CX) industry guidelines for PayTo. This partnership marks the third time AP+ has teamed up with Thoughtworks to bring together CX guidelines, making us a preferred partner.
Thoughtworks is a preferred partner for Australian Payments Plus for their customer-centric approach and consistent delivery, which make it easier for us to deliver to our PayTo users.
Approach
We love a good challenge, and this engagement saw us leading the creation of the CX guidelines right from the beginning. By bringing our collective delivery experience, we were able to address technical feasibility uncertainties among a wide range of merchants during the design phase, ensuring users could easily implement the solution. Our hands-on “design in delivery” expertise not only made the design journey smoother, it also played a pivotal role in helping AP+ navigate the complex process of launching a universal CX design standard.
In close collaboration with AP+, this engagement unfolded through three critical stages: 1) knowledge acquisition 2) design and ideation and 3) guideline creation and refinement. Along the way, we identified key challenges and incorporated valuable feedback from internal and external stakeholders, allowing us to continually refine and iterate the guidelines throughout the entire process.
Thoughtworks as a long term partner for NPPA and now Australian Payments Plus has helped bring their vision of PayTo to life to enable consumers, banks, merchants and payment service providers to transform the future of Australia's payment sector.
Result
In two months, AP+ launched PayTo’s CX guideline for merchants and billers. The comprehensive and straightforward guide offers users clarity on what to build and how to present PayTo to their customers, ensuring consistency for end users and instilling confidence in the implementation journey. These guidelines are designed to serve a wide range of merchants and offer high fidelity prototypes that cover the most prevalent use cases, encouraging widespread adoption.
Through this engagement, we have addressed the following for AP+:
Supported their go-to-market strategy and adoption of PayTo.
Established new industry guidelines for their newest payment experience.
The comprehensive guidelines, complemented by high fidelity prototypes, simplify the CX journey, eliminating uncertainties and providing insights into solution rationale.
Established new industry CX guidelines that have served as a key element to supporting the adoption of PayTo.
PayTo is currently enabled within online banking for 90% of retail transaction banking accounts.
Australian Payments Plus partnered with a leading Australian retailer to bring the PayTo payment experience to life.
Following the initial launch of the PayTo CX guidelines, we’ve developed additional versions with industry specific scenarios to further extend the reach and adoption of AP+’s payment solution.
What’s ahead
As PayTo’s adoption gains momentum and continues to expand, so too will the range of stakeholders in the market. The industry CX guidelines play a pivotal role in this transformation, and will drive innovation as it caters for new use cases and other sectors. Together with AP+, we’ve successfully pioneered a shared standard for an innovative payments solution, shaping the payments experience of millions across Australia.
In 2024, AP+ and Thoughtworks received the Good Design Award Winner Accolade in Australia under the Digital Design - Interface category. The Australian Good Design Awards are the country’s oldest and most prestigious international awards for design and innovation, and recognizes organizations that have exemplified best practice design.
Our relentless pursuit in innovative payment design, is to craft seamless customer experiences which deliver excellence across all touchpoints. Enriching the customer journey and simplifying the solution to support early market adoption.
