Commonwealth Bank’s Technology Briefing: Recap

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has reaffirmed its commitment to deliver leading digital banking experiences for customers at its latest Technology Briefing held at the Foundry in South Eveleigh yesterday.

Speaking at the briefing, CBA's Chief Executive Officer, Matt Comyn, highlighted the bank’s four strategic priorities and shared how we were working to deliver against these priorities.

“The first is to play a leadership role in Australia’s economic recovery and transition. The second is all about re-imagined products and services. The third is about being the best in digital and technology. And the fourth is all about building on our simpler, better foundations, which have delivered so many improvements across the organisation over the last two and a half years,” Mr Comyn told event attendees.

“Today’s update is really around the second and third of our strategic priorities, around re-imagining our products and services for our customers and making sure that we are delivering the best digital experience, benchmarked across our global competitors and the customer experiences that our customers see and live.”

Mr Comyn said the current health pandemic had accelerated the bank’s determination to deliver leading digital customer experiences.

He referenced the bank’s continued investment in its Customer Engagement Engine (CEE) as an example of its commitment to delivering best-in-class experiences. The CEE now runs around 400 machine-learning models and ingests about 157 billion data points in real time, in order to make 35 million decisions per day.

“The scale of that is impressive but what’s most important is the value we can serve to our customers in terms of relevance, in terms of personalised experience, and making sure we are the trusted financial partner for our customers at the centre of their financial lives,” he said.

Also presenting at yesterday’s event was the bank’s Executive General Manager Everyday Banking, Kate Crous. Ms Crous elaborated on some of the innovative digital features the bank has rolled out to customers through its award-winning app over the past 12 months, including Bills Sense, For You, and the Coronavirus Money Plan.

“When you look at how our customers are engaging with the app, it is changing,” Ms Crous said at the event.

“They are engaging in more meaningful ways with our smart content and features, to help them better understand their finances and give them guidance in staying on top of their money management.”

Ms Crous said the bank now has 7.5 million digitally active customers, which is up 10 per cent in comparison to 2018. 6.3 million customers are now using the app, up 400,000 in comparison to 12 months prior. Further, 70 per cent of all transactions are now conducted digitally.  

The event also provided the opportunity to celebrate the one year anniversary of CBA’s venture scaling entity, x15ventures, and announce the company’s latest business venture.

Speaking at the briefing, x15ventures Managing Director, Toby Norton-Smith, discussed the success of x15’s first four ventures: Credit Savvy, Home-in, Vonto, and Backr, and announced the fifth venture Doshii - an app that streamlines the chaotic process of running a hospitality business.

Doshii marks the first acquisition for x15ventures and, according to Mr Norton-Smith represents the evolution of the strategic direction for the company.

“The acquisition of Doshii is an exciting moment for us at the one year mark, because I think it is a real maturation of our strategy. We have proven that we can build quality ventures,” Mr Norton-Smith said at the event.

“The next step for me is let’s have more impact. Let’s actually bring ventures that have been in the market for a few years, and bring them on the journey with us.”

To see more of the highlights from yesterday’s event, watch the video below.