Financial Services Platform Modernisation

A licensed New Zealand deposit-taker was running its core operations on an ageing platform that had served the business well for years — but couldn't keep pace with where the business needed to go. Upcoming regulatory requirements, including the Deposit Takers Act 2023 and the Depositor Compensation Scheme, demanded capabilities the legacy system simply didn't have. Day-to-day, the operational cost was real: staff reconciled transactions manually across disconnected systems, entered the same data twice, and spent days assembling regulatory reports that should have taken hours. More than 200 external brokers — responsible for the vast majority of new business — had no digital channel to submit or track applications.

We started with a rapid discovery phase: mapping the complete customer lifecycle from first application through to settlement, identifying where the existing process created friction, and pinpointing the compliance gaps that the new regulatory regime would expose. Rather than disappearing to build a specification document, we worked collaboratively with stakeholders across lending operations, compliance, and broker management — running focused design sessions to ensure the solution reflected how the business actually works, not just how it looks on paper.

In under ten days from first briefing, we delivered a 21-screen interactive prototype covering the full customer lifecycle — application intake, consent capture, identity verification, operator approval, ledger update, payment instruction, and a complete audit bundle. Every screen was functional and clickable, not static mockups. The prototype demonstrated the end-to-end evidence chain that regulators require: from the moment a customer applies through to the final payment record, with every decision point captured and auditable.

The demo landed. Stakeholders confirmed continued engagement on the spot, with Phase 1 scope agreed within the week: a full loan origination module with an integrated processing engine. The prototype had made the abstract concrete — leadership could see exactly how a modern platform would eliminate manual reconciliation, automate compliance evidence chains, and give their broker network the self-service tools they'd been asking for.

Phase 1 build is underway: a loan origination module with integrated processing engine, designed to handle the full lifecycle from application through to settlement. A digital broker portal will give the 200+ broker network direct access to submit applications, track status, and manage their pipeline. Automated compliance reporting will align with DTA 2023 and Depositor Compensation Scheme requirements from day one.