Another five years for bank clouds: ANZ

Beverley Head
Thursday, 06 October 2011 16:13

Technology Feature - Cloud Computing

Cloud vendors may be wildly spruiking their wares - but they need to evolve their offerings further according to ANZ chief information officer Anne Weatherston who does not believe cloud is likely to be relevant for banks for another five years.

Speaking at a CEDA event in Sydney, Ms Weatherston said that; 'Cloud is relevant to SMEs - it's not particularly relevant for large complex banks at this stage.' While ANZ had harnessed elements of virtualisation and grid computing, she did not expect cloud to become a real prospect for another five years.

She said that virtualisation and grid computing should be exploited in order to liberate computing efficiencies; 'and in the fullness of time potentially cloud will offer an equivalent opportunity for software services.'

Asked whether she believed that cloud computing would ever change the role of a CIO, making a CIO less of a technology initiator and more of a technology orchestrator Ms Weatherston said; 'I'll believe it when I see it.'

'I look at cloud and am still a bit sceptical. How much can you commoditise a bank?'

While Ms Weatherston seems sceptical about the cloud's contribution to banking, she's a social media convert, claiming that it was having a transforming effect on the big banks.

'It will not be good enough to provide static account data, bank customers will increasingly expect personalised banking pages that can be tailored to meet individual preferences and reflect personal changes including location and transaction histories,' she warned.

ANZ has already pioneered the mobile banking space with its goMoney application delivered last year for the iPhone, and which has attracted more than 425,000 active users.