Podcast
082: Westpac, Macgregor Duncan.
Westpac Banking as a Service CEO, Macgregor Duncan is a special guest on ep 82 of Fintech Chatter Podcast.
Dexter Cousins asks questions about the 10x partnership and how Westpac’s Banking as a Service platform brings Fintech and incumbent Banks closer.
In October 2020 Westpac announced a landmark partnership with Fintech giant, Afterpay. The partnership will allow Afterpay to provide Westpac transaction and savings accounts and other cashflow management tools to its 3.3 million customers in Australia.
To our knowledge, no other such partnership exists in the world of Fintech. Further partnerships with Society One demonstrate Westpac’s desire to work with Fintech rather than compete.
As we head into Intersekt Festival 2021 Macgregor talks candidly of the challenges facing incumbent banks. He also shares his thoughts on how banks can adapt and become part of a very exciting but uncertain future.
About Macgregor Duncan and Westpac
Westpac is Australia’s second-largest bank. Macgregor Duncan leads Westpac’s corporate and business development team, where he’s responsible for M&A, strategic investments and partnerships.
Macgregor also heads up Westpac’s new digital bank.
Before joining Westpac in 2016, Macgregor’s spent time in the US as managing director at a US private equity firm. He also spent time as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and a corporate lawyer in New York.
Graduating from Adelaide, Princeton and Harvard Universities, Macgregor is the co-author of Imagining Australia: Ideas For Our Future.
Macgregor is currently a non-executive director at the Australian Business Growth Fund and sits on the board of 10x Future Technologies.
What happened next.
This episode was recorded in May 2021, while Macgregor was at Westpac. The following year he left to co-found Constantinople with Di Challenor, who had run Global Transaction Services and Payments at Westpac.
Constantinople came out of stealth in May 2023 with a record $32 million seed round from Square Peg, AirTree and Great Southern Bank. By March 2025 it had raised its Series A, put Great Southern Bank into market and signed three more clients. In 2026 Move Bank became the first bank in the world to move its entire operation — technology, product, operations and compliance — onto the platform, cutting cost to income by around 30%.
- Constantinople comes out of stealth (2023) — Mac’s first episode as a founder
- Fintech’s most ambitious startup (2025) — Di and Mac, three years in, with full transcript
- World first bank migration: Move Bank on Constantinople (2026)
- All Fintech Chatter episodes
