Judo Bank is Australia’s first purpose-built SME business bank, focused on providing relationship-led lending to small and medium sized businesses as well as Term Deposits & Savings products. While digital plays a critical role in how customers engage with the brand, Judo Bank’s business lending proposition is centred on human expertise, fast decision-making, and tailored deal structuring, not just being an online-only bank.
To support this, Judo Bank needed a website that clearly communicated its unique position in the market, simplified complex lending concepts, and enabled brokers and customers to easily engage with the business. Their previous platform made even simple updates time-consuming and difficult to implement, making a more flexible and efficient content management system a key driver for this rebuild.
Challenge
To align with Judo Bank’s strategic focus on SME business lending and term deposits, the digital experience needed to better reflect their differentiated service proposition, combining digital convenience with hands-on, relationship-driven expertise.
This required:
- Reframing the website to clearly articulate Judo’s value beyond traditional banking, particularly its relationship-led approach, speed of decisioning, and flexible deal structuring
- Simplifying navigation and user journeys for key audiences, particularly savings customers and SME customers
- Developing a scalable platform that could support ongoing growth across lending and deposit products
Judo Bank also needed a flexible, user-friendly CMS that empowered internal teams to manage and update content quickly, without relying on complex development workflows. At the same time, the platform needed to be technically robust and scalable, forming a strong foundation for future digital and data initiatives.
Solution
The webqem team took a comprehensive approach to re-imagine, rebuild and optimise Judo Bank’s digital presence:
A re-imagined site structure
Through discovery workshops with stakeholders, we redefined the information architecture and user journeys to better reflect how the different audiences engage with Judo. The new structure makes it easier to understand Judo’s offering and highlights key differentiators such as relationship-led service and tailored lending solutions.
UX and UI evolution
Building on Judo Bank’s existing brand, we introduced a cleaner, more intuitive design system and navigation. This improves at-a-glance comprehension and creates a more human, accessible experience, reinforcing the balance between digital efficiency and personalised service.
Flexible CMS foundation
WordPress was selected for its flexibility, scalability, and ease of use. This enables internal teams to quickly publish and update content, supporting more agile marketing and campaign execution while maintaining a stable platform for future enhancements.
Streamlined lead capture and broker engagement
To support lead generation and visibility, Gravity Forms was integrated with Salesforce. This provides clearer attribution, improved tracking of customer enquiries, and better insight into the pipeline, helping connect digital activity with relationship-led follow-up.
Data-driven insights and GEO /SEO Audit
A detailed SEO and GEO (AI) audit was conducted to identify technical improvements, content gaps, and high-value search opportunities aligned to SME lending and deposit intent. Post-launch, a Looker Studio dashboard provides ongoing visibility into performance, supporting continuous optimisation.
Robust infrastructure and operations
The platform was deployed on a high-availability AWS architecture with fully managed hosting, 24/7 monitoring, and enterprise-grade security controls. This ensures reliability, scalability, and operational resilience as Judo Bank continues to grow.
Ongoing enhancements
As part of ongoing development, new and enhanced savings product pages were delivered to support individuals, businesses, and SMSFs, along with tools such as a savings calculator to improve product discovery and engagement.
Platforms
Results
In the four months post launch, Judo Bank has seen:
By repositioning Judo Bank’s digital experience to reflect its core strength as a relationship-led SME lender, supported by a modern, flexible platform, we created a website that better connects digital engagement with human expertise.
The result is a scalable digital foundation that empowers internal teams, supports brokers and customers more effectively, and drives measurable growth, all while reinforcing Judo Bank’s unique place in the Australian banking landscape.
This project was about more than just a website rebuild; it was about creating a modern, future-proof digital foundation for where Judo Bank is heading. As we’ve expanded into savings products, we needed a platform that could evolve with us, enabling new integrations, automation, and faster product rollout, while still clearly communicating our relationship-led approach to business lending. The result is a much stronger connection between our digital experience and how we support our SME customers.
Nathan Meffan, Digital Marketing Manager, Judo Bank
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