How banking chief Nuno Matos has quietly marked-down ANZ Plus
ANZ’s glamour tech project has cost $1.5bn and was six years in the making. However, the bank’s newly installed chief executive, Nuno Matos, isn’t sold on it.
A little over two months into the top job, ANZ’s new chief executive Nuno Matos has quietly downgraded the bank’s glamour technology project.
A platform called ANZ Plus has a lot of hype around it. It has been under construction for almost six years and counting, while coming with an eye-watering cost of around $1.5bn.
The delays were starting to dog former chief executive Shayne Elliott, but he had promised the wait would be worth it. The cutting-edge technology would be a game-changer for ANZ, he said.
It would slash operating costs, while customers would get access to a new-generation banking app that offered myriad financial and savings features. The platform has been in “soft launch” for just over two years and is on the cusp of hitting the big time.
But no-nonsense former HSBC banker Matos wants ANZ Plus to take a back seat – for now.
Matos is slowing the rollout, and, critically, has put the project under review.
Meanwhile, the top tech executives directly involved in the ANZ Plus program, including former retail banking boss Maile Carnegie, have left the bank or been moved elsewhere.
In his final months as chief executive, Elliott had said customers at the recently acquired Suncorp Bank would be start to be moved across on to ANZ Plus from this year. This was the centre of the Suncorp integration project and would be a mammoth task. It would involve moving 1.3 million accounts and all their data on the new platform, providing the ultimate real-world test for ANZ Plus.
Once the Suncorp migration was done, ANZ would then turn its attention to moving five million customers and 600,000 small-business customers sitting on its legacy banking platform, Classic, across to ANZ Plus, with the last batch of customers to be moved across three years from now.
This has prompted rivals to point out that by that stage the project would be running into its ninth year, longer than the entire Apollo space program from launch to the first moon landing.
In recent weeks, Matos has told ANZ staff he was prioritising the integration of Suncorp, “particularly moving Suncorp Bank customers across to ANZ”.
To speed this up, all the account details and data history of Suncorp customers will now move across to the old, but ever-reliable Classic platform, although at the “front-end” customers will see the ANZ Plus app. Still, it’s at the all-important back-end where ANZ Plus promised to deliver, but has now been left out of the picture.
Matos told staff that fast tracking the integration makes the benefits of scale of a reality while “providing a better banking experience and reducing the risks associated with operating multiple technology systems”.
He has named the executive in charge of the Suncorp integration, Daniel King, to a new role that sits above three separate customer migration teams currently in place around ANZ Plus. This suggests the reporting lines and accountability around the project were confused.
One team was focused on customers on the Classic platform, one for Suncorp customers, and the third was looking at building out ANZ Plus and its products.
Significantly, King has been asked to oversee a review of ANZ Plus, with a brief to see if the platform delivers a “consistent customer experience” for Suncorp Bank customers. The review is expected to take place over coming months and will give Matos a cleared-eyed view of the program.
This shows a major shift under way inside ANZ, with Matos putting speed of delivery and execution over any attachment to legacy programs.
It is also an acknowledgment that moving millions of accounts from one bank to another is fraught with risk, and Matos does not want to move customers on to a platform that is, in effect, still being built. It would be like moving into a newly-built house before the fittings or even some walls have been installed. The potential for disruption and loss of customers to other banks would be huge.
Still, ANZ Plus already has just over a million customers on its platform and $21bn in deposits.
Much of the initial growth came as new customers signing on to the bank, including those coming through mortgage brokers, were being put on to ANZ Plus, even as it wasn’t able to support mortgages. The platform has only recently switched to selling digital home loans through the platform through mortgage brokers.
In addition to the exit this month of Carnegie, ANZ recently announced long-serving chief technology officer Gerard Florian would retire from August. Florian had ultimate oversight of ANZ Plus, as well as a second platform being built by the bank called ANZ Transactive Global, designed to host mid-sized businesses to big corporate customers. Combined, ANZ has spent $2.8bn over five years building both platforms.
Investors have been paying for the build, with about 80 per cent of the costs in the program being expensed upfront rather than being dripped out over coming years as a depreciation cost.
Matos has tapped Auckland-based Michael Bullock, the current chief information officer for its large New Zealand business, to the role of acting chief technology officer while a search is under way for Florian’s replacement.
Several other executives directly involved in ANZ Plus have stepped away from the project in recent weeks, including Christine Linden who was overseeing migration of existing ANZ customers. She has moved to a new role inside the bank’s regulation team.
The chief information officer of ANZ’s retail banking arm, Paul White, who worked closely on ANZ Plus, has been replaced with seasoned tech executive Josh McLean who was previously at US fuel logistics major World Kinect.
Another to have left the bank this month is Antony Strong, the bank’s head of strategy and transformation.
While not directly involved in ANZ Plus, Strong was widely-regarded as Elliott’s right-hand man and played a key role in the Suncorp acquisition. He also had oversight in pushing innovation through the bank.
Matos, a global banker who was in the running for the HSBC top job, is widely seen as a CEO in a hurry to get things done.
On joining in May, he set out three priorities – around execution of projects; lifting returns at ANZ’s Australian retail and corporate businesses; and improving how ANZ manages risks.
“I acknowledge change can be difficult, Matos recently told staff. “But it also brings opportunity, both for us and our customers.
eric.johnston@news.com.au
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