ANZ wants leaders, not builders of bank IT

ANZ Bank’s chief information officer has urged banking technologists to adapt to business-focussed roles as organisations outsource IT systems development.

Software by SAP and Systematics featured heavily in ongoing core banking modernisation projects at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and ANZ’s New Zealand business.

The change is less about designing

"The change is less about designing and building a research solution, and much more about influencing the business design to conform to the platform requirements.

"The role of technologists in financial services will increasingly become the leadership and design of platform implementation to enable new business models and integration with other relevant applications."

Weatherston said research would be a "key enabler of the new financial services industry" – nevertheless only if deployed to support business outcomes.

ANZ’s aim to marry business and IT was reflected in an restructure announced last month that grouped innovation staff into five teams: global retail, commercial and wealth; institutional; group; New Zealand; and Asia-Pacific, Europe and America.

"What we’re seeking to do it to build deep subject matter expertise in each of these domains that can work closely with the business to assist on the bringing at the same time of the business and IT architecture."

The concerns of IT

Weatherston said change management strategies were needed to address the concerns of IT and business people facing "an uncomfortable learning curve" and fears of losing control.

"This will not be an easy transformation and deep down the challenge will be the traditional culture of the organisation, not least the relationship between business and research in banks."

Weatherston highlighted virtualisation and grid computing as means by which organisations might achieve more computing power and infrastructure for less cost.

Cloud computing could "offer an equivalent possibility for software services" as time goes by and would likely be a "fact of life" in five years’ time, Weatherston said.

But the cloud computing industry had to mature previously becoming "particularly relevant for large complex banks … at a large scale", she said.

Although the cloud was "relevant to small and medium businesses" today, the industry was all in all evolving, she said, and the "jury [was] in spite of everything out" with financial services regulator APRA.

Open letter last November

In an open letter last November, APRA urged financial services institutions to view cloud computing as a new form of outsourcing or offshoring that required its tick of approval.