ASB Group(MIS100 2009)

By CIO staff | Friday, July 24 2009

2008 ranking: 18

Senior IS executive: Russell Jones, CIO
Reports to: Charles Pink, managing director
Size of IS shop: 570

PCs: 5400
Mobile PCs: 790
Terminals: 1280
Hand-held devices: 650
Total screens: 8120

Industry: Finance and insurance
PC environment: Acer, HP, Windows XP
Server environment: HP, Unisys, IBM; Unix; Windows 2000, 2003, AIX; Linux
DBMS: Unisys, SQL, Oracle
Address: Level 28, ASB Bank Centre, 135 Albert Street, Auckland
Website: www.asb.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Website refresh; systems upgrade to support Kiwisaver products; web development process redesign; enhanced CRM system; refine business intelligence and data warehouse tools.

Online banking services, customer experience and business banking services continue as a major focus for the ASB Group in 2009. The bank’s CIO Russell Jones says technology remains at the heart of ASB’s drive for greater efficiency and productivity and excellent customer experience.

One example is new online banking initiatives in Fastnet Classic and Fastnet Business online channels. Mid-way through 2008, the ASB website had a complete refresh; page numbers were halved, content streamlined and ‘Web 2.0’ features introduced.

These include ‘Antenna’, which allows users to rate and comment on specialist content on the site, and there is more opportunity for site users to provide direct feedback to the bank. The site is built using Microsoft’s .Net framework with Ajax and XML web technologies.

Other achievements over the past year include refined business intelligence and data warehouse tools, which are used to identify customers and customise the customer experience, along with enhancement of the bank’s CRM system. ASB has a full VoIP network using Cisco Call Manager. Benefits have included a reduction in toll costs, the introduction of video, unified messaging, and distributed call centres and the creation of a ‘single environment’ across the bank’s 150 dispersed sites. Pago, ASB’s mobile and internet payments company, worked with electronic payment company Paymark to offer secure online payments to local e-commerce businesses. ASB conducts most IT functions in-house and maintains relationships with providers to support specific deliverables, including hardware break/fix and some application development.