ANZ operates the most widely used retail banking app in Australia, servicing millions of everyday banking customers. As a consultant product design lead with HeathWallace, I helped ANZ design and deliver an instant payments experience leveraging the New Payments Platform (NPP). By rethinking the end-to-end payment journey and integrating real-time transaction capabilities, we created a frictionless experience that increased both adoption and engagement across the app.

Deliverables: User Research, Product Strategy, Feature Validation, UX & UI Design, Prototyping, Stakeholder Workshops
‍Project Type: Mobile App, B2C, FinTech, Real-Time Payments
‍Team: Product Design Lead (me), Business Analyst, Developer, Project Manager

Business goal

ANZ wanted to capitalise on the New Payments Platform (NPP) to provide customers with instant, secure, and reliable payments, reducing reliance on slower batch processes. The goal was to increase app engagement, differentiate ANZ’s retail banking offering, and provide a seamless, modern banking experience that met customers’ growing expectations for immediacy and convenience.

User goal

Customers faced delays and uncertainty when sending or receiving payments using traditional banking methods. Key frustrations included waiting hours—or even days—for funds to clear, inability to track payments in real time, and a lack of clarity around fees and confirmations. The aim was to design an experience where users could:
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- Send and receive money instantly to almost anyone, anywhere in Australia.
- Track transaction progress in real time.
- Access smart prompts and contextual suggestions for recurring transfers, bill payments, and splitting expenses.
- Feel confident their payments were secure and immediate.

Design process

As an embedded consulting team, we worked closely with ANZ’s product, risk, and engineering teams to deliver a validated proposition that balanced user needs with regulatory and operational constraints.

01. Customer discovery

I designed a survey distributed to ANZ retail app users, collecting 412 responses, to understand how customers managed everyday payments and what frustrations slowed them down. Key insights included: 68% of respondents wanted instant confirmation for every payment, 52% reported frustration with delayed transfers for urgent payments, and 45% wanted smarter prompts for recurring or scheduled payments. The research also revealed preferred payment methods (PayID, BSB & account, recurring transfers), functional drivers (sending money, splitting bills, paying invoices), and contextual factors such as time of day and device usage.
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These insights highlighted opportunities to reduce friction, increase confidence, and make everyday banking feel faster and more reliable. They directly informed feature prioritisation and the design of flows that allowed users to complete payments instantly, track them in real time, and feel in control of their money - strengthening trust and engagement with the ANZ retail app.

02. In-Depth User Interviews

I conducted 28 interviews with a mix of frequent NPP users, traditional batch payment users, and customers new to instant payments. These conversations revealed pain points around uncertainty, transaction tracking, and mental overhead when splitting bills or sending money to multiple recipients.

03. Collaborative Ideation

I facilitated co-design workshops with ANZ stakeholders, including product managers, risk, engineering, and customer experience teams. Through journey mapping, lightning demos, and prioritisation exercises, we explored solutions like real-time push confirmations, intelligent transaction suggestions, and split-payment flows.

04. Feature Validation

Card sorting and rapid prototyping with 32 users validated desirability and usability of features such as “Instant Pay,” “Track Payment,” and “Split & Send.” Insights informed the final feature set and prioritisation using a RICE framework, ensuring we launched features that customers valued most.

05. Experience Design

I designed end-to-end flows and high-fidelity UI within the ANZ app. Key considerations included seamless integration with existing account views, clear real-time notifications, contextual prompts for recurring and scheduled payments, and compliance with regulatory and fraud prevention requirements.

06. Agile Development & Handover

I collaborated with the product analyst, developer, and project manager as part of an agile squad. Features were scoped, estimated, and documented with clear acceptance criteria, enabling ANZ’s engineering team to deliver functionality confidently while marketing planned a successful customer rollout.

Result

The ANZ instant payments experience launched to all retail app users, achieving strong outcomes in the first 6 months:
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- 37% increase in daily active users engaging with payments features.
- 54% of all retail app users adopted instant payments for at least one transaction.
- 92% of transactions were completed in under 30 seconds, reducing customer friction and support calls.
- Positive app store ratings for the payments module increased from 4.2 to 4.7 stars.
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The success of the project reinforced ANZ’s position as a leader in customer-centric banking, demonstrating how design-led innovation can unlock adoption of emerging payment technologies at scale.