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CommBank InstalPay at UPowr
UPowr makes software for managing solar and battery sales, installations, and servicing. When CommBank became an enterprise partner, they wanted their new buy-now, pay-later product, InstalPay, in our customer journey. We'd never done anything like this before.
The work touched almost every customer-facing surface. What customers saw on their quote, how they understood their repayments, how they applied, and every email and text along the way.
I led content and product design across two teams. UPowr's project team built the integration. CommBank's product and legal teams approved every customer-facing detail.
Designing the customer journey
The solar quote
Workshops. Solar and battery sales were new to CommBank's product team, so we walked them through how a system is designed, what's legally required on a quote, and what happens during an install. They came back with the InstalPay requirements, covering who could apply, what they'd pay, and how the application would run.
The happy path. I added InstalPay to the early nurture emails to prime customers before their quote arrived. For the quote, I designed a simple repayment calculator that showed their monthly cost against their estimated monthly savings. I also designed the checkout flow, which sent them to the CommBank app to apply, then returned them to UPowr to schedule the install.
The quote to installation journey
The exceptions. These were the harder design problem. InstalPay promised approval in seconds, but sometimes it took longer, sometimes the customer was declined, and sometimes they just abandoned it. Every one of those states needed UX copy and an email explaining what happened and what to do next.
The comms layer
The scope. The customer journey included 34 emails and SMS. I rewrote every nudge, confirmation, reminder, and update from quote request through to installed system, and wrote six new ones for InstalPay moments, including approved, declined, application cancelled, and rebate initiated.
A consistent shape. What's happening now, what happens next, a short set of contextual FAQs, then a way to ask for help. Same whether the news was good or bad, so customers always knew where to look.
Building trust. Tone was the easy part. Solar is an expensive purchase, so we needed to build trust. When we finished designing someone's system, this is what they got.
We've finished designing your system, and it's ready for you to review! To design it, we looked at your roof and things that might cast a shadow on it (like nearby trees). Then we placed solar panels where they'll get the most sun and calculated how much energy they'll generate over a year.
An order update email
What changed. Every message went through CommBank's product and legal teams, and not every line that I wrote survived. For example, I wrote the approval email to sound like the moment it was.
Congrats on being approved for InstalPay, and thanks for choosing us to install your new system.
CommBank changed it to this.
We've been advised your application for CommBank InstalPay was successful.
Theirs shipped. It wasn't as warm, but it put distance between us and the credit decision, which the bank needed.
Outcomes
InstalPay launched in October 2023, when CommBank announced UPowr as the first merchant on the new product.
The partnership announcement
The partnership lasted about 18 months. CommBank discontinued InstalPay in 2025, after regulations changed around short-term credit. The work shaped how we approached partnerships afterwards. The comms patterns, the way of working with CommBank's legal team, and the shape of a customer journey across two organisations.