While I did not go there to work in a bank, I ended up in senior operations and change leadership roles for the lending business of ANZ, one of Australia’s biggest banks, for nine years. What I experienced there has informed how I see technology enabling transformation and left me considering how Australian banks absorb technology can offer lessons to others. 

Australia is a tightly packed market for banking services. There are the big four banks with 75%+ market share, and there is a second tier of smaller banks. All of these banks, big or small, don’t sit on their laurels and are desperate to find ways to notch up or protect market share.  

Despite the dominance of a few, it actually creates conditions where the Australian banks are focused at looking beyond price differentiation and into how they can differentiate with customer service. Finding differentiation zeroes in naturally first on pricing or other product features, but technology is what Australian banks have exploited in a unique way to then build beyond this. 

When I arrived CBA was doing a major core banking and CRM project that could let them interact better with customers and both protect and increase market share. Their success led to the other players considering how to approach their core technology with some following a similar path and others ‘hollowing out’ their core systems using other solutions. 

The focused market did lead to banks aiming to choose the best platforms and solutions in different areas. Even if it were the same, then they would look to see how to implement and set up processes and policies to gain an advantage. Many also looked to use teams in different geograhies to not just achieve cost efficiencies but also service timescale benefits. Selecting off the shelf banking software packages tended to be avoided and the opportunities for low code and workflow process automation were embraced as you could  customise a solution to beat the competitors. 

I also think that they early on had their technology leadership more plugged into the business leadership. It was common for dual reporting lines and inclusion of technology leads on the business, operations and product leadership teams. This kept different functional teams more aligned on the challenges and led them to more often team up better on solutions. Personally I experienced how closer working relationships were built between IT and business because both sides were so intent on getting that edge through technology gains. And to do so the technology teams needed to understand the process, and the operations and servicing teams understand what was possible with technology available.

There are other characteristics of the Australian banking market worthwhile knowing. 

Australian consumers are notoriously hostile to banks, perhaps even more so than UK customers. The perception of banks ripping consumers off is strong and there is a national ‘tall poppy syndrome’ that likes to see organisations who stand out cut down.  There is also the geographic challenges of a dispersed population and customer base. This keeps service and customer engagement front of mind, whether there is a branch nearby or not. This has led to all the banks in Australia aiming to have effective web, app and real time decisioning deployments to better meet customer needs digitally. 

The national regulator has also pressed hard on consumer rights to which Australian banks have had to adapt their systems regularly and stay abreast of changes. This included important work around responsible lending as well as customer data privacy and utilisation.

As smaller market than the UK or USA, Australia and New Zealand can be testing beds for innovative new fintech ideas and products to then apply to other developed markets. So, while it is 20 years since I started work there and I am very UK settled for now, I will always keep an eye on how banks down under innovate and how they are using digital tech for competitive advantage in customer engagement and servicing.