'Pleased it's over': Ubank CEO on the 86 400 merger and the neobank's future at NAB
Ubank's CEO details the exhausting acquisition of 86 400, and where the neobank sits within NAB after the big bank's strategic review.
Philippa Watson is not the founder of a startup, the usual type of interviewee covered by our In The Arena. But in early 2021, just seven months into her stint as CEO of Ubank, she found herself in the position of having to merge with one when NAB announced it would be acquiring 86 400.
Ubank, which was created in 2008, then spent two years building a new platform based on 86 400's tech and then migrating customers from both brands to it. ANZ will look to make a similar move in the coming years as it pushes both its own customers and those it'll get from its acquisition of Suncorp to its ANZ Plus platform.
Years after the rise and fall of several neobanks, Ubank has just over 850,000 customers. It trails only Up, the Bendigo Bank-owned neo, which last month crossed one million.
Speaking to Capital Brief, Watson explained the many difficulties of that phase as well as where Ubank sits within NAB following a strategic review handed down by the big bank's new CEO Andrew Irvine.
