Benefits Finder – Redefining how banks support communities

Many people in Australia face extreme financial stress. â…“ are unable to access $500 in emergencies. NSW Government provides over $115 billion of benefits annually, however, billions are left unclaimed by those who need it most. Social stigma and high-effort processes mean people rarely know help is available, let alone access it - leading to hardship, and reduced quality of life. The brief was to design a service that uses the bank's systems and scale to revolutionise how government benefits support the community - and generate the human stories and business indicators to make a case for funding.

Unlike the Government, CBA has real-time data to identify who's eligible for rebates - along with an app used by 6.1 million people. Over 6 weeks we designed and piloted a service to proactively connect people to rebates they're eligible for - making it simpler to apply. To ensure lasting change, we defined a long-term vision and roadmap for CBA's teams to go from pilot to national scale. The service then grew to provide access to over 275 benefits, across utilities, household costs, hardship support, education, and disaster relief - like bushfire recovery, COVID-19 support, and economy restart programs like Dine & Discover NSW.

Benefits Finder changed lives. In the first year, $500+ million was claimed by 1 million people. Of this, over half went to disaster relief - playing an instrumental role in helping people through some of the toughest times our country has seen. With lives disrupted, and an uncertain future, simple access to support made difference between paying the rent, and keeping the lights on. For CBA, this project demonstrated how banks could play a new role in the community, leveraging their data, technology, and scale to drive genuine positive impact - and the business outcomes have guaranteed future funding.

Benefits Finder redefined the role banks can play in society - from simply providing financial services, to genuinely helping people and communities prosper. Traditional thinking was that investing in services that support customers in need would only ever cater to the least profitable customers, and could never shift the bottom line. By providing support in an 'un-bank-like' manner, CBA has been able to shift its role from 'just another big 4 bank' to a genuine pillar of support in the community. "Since the start of the pandemic, we have provided support to approximately 100,000 businesses and one million personal customers. This includes the deferral of repayments on approximately 240,000 home, business and consumer loans, lower interest rates for borrowers, increased interest rates for depositors, and waived fees and charges" - Matt Comyn, CEO, Commonwealth Bank "I'm shocked. This is a good idea, and funnily enough, is far clearer than browsing the [government] page. Nice to see your bank doing something somewhat slightly useful for working-class people." - CBA Customer