The Aussie bank recognised that customers are no longer just benchmarking against other financial institutions.
One of Australia’s big four banks, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) s accelerating its digital strategy with an ambition to provide customers with one of the best digital experiences of any company globally.
Matt Comyn CEO at CBA said the bank wants to remain Australia’s clear leader in digital banking. The bank recognised that customers are no longer just benchmarking against other financial institutions.
“They compare us with the best digital experiences they get from any business in the world. We intend to be at the global forefront of the digital experience and be the trusted partner at the centre of our customers’ financial lives,” he said. “Our investment in technology including data, machine learning and artificial intelligence is giving us unique insights into each customer’s individual needs. Customers want more control over their financial affairs, more confidence they can achieve financial goals, and an ability to manage all of their financial life in one place.
Comyn recently announced that CBA has applied for accreditation to ingest data under the government’s Open Banking regime.
“The Consumer Data Right puts customers in control and will be a critical enabler of Australia’s future and the digital economy,” he noted. “We will continue to invest to support it and bring the benefits to CBA’s customers.”
Cyber safety was an issue that the bank was also investing in. According to Comyn every customer wants their banking to be safe, secure, easy, and convenient, but they also want digital tools to help them plan and budget, set goals and achieve them, predict, and manage their bills, and achieve their dreams of owning a home, running a business, or securing their retirement. They also want to be connected to new services, enabled by digital technology, that enrich their lives.
Comyn said the bank recently acquired Doshii, a cloud platform for the hospitality industry that integrates information from multiple food ordering apps – such as Deliveroo – into one system that consolidates a venue’s point of sale and back end processes into one simple platform.
Latest digital banking figures
Comyn said CBA had seen record numbers of customers banking digitally:
- 5 million customers are now digitally active, an increase of 10 per cent since December 2018;
- 3 million customers are using the CommBank app, as at December 2020, up from 5.9 million customers from the same time the year before
- For the month of December 2020, the number of app log-ins was 216 million, which translated to 6.95 million log-ins per day
- For the month of December 2020, app transactions per day were 1.7 million, equating to daily transactions of A$1 billion
- Over 6 billion personalised in-app messages were sent to customers in 2020
- 731 million in-app messages were sent relating to COVID-19 support and information in 2020
- The Benefits finder service in CommBank app and NetBank has helped customers find more than A$150 million annually in federal and state financial benefits with 2.9 million customers visiting the feature since its September 2019 launch and 920,000 claims commenced, of which 615,000 were commenced since COVID-19 began
- 4 million customers received crisis response messages in 2020 for incidents such as bushfires
- CBA’s BizExpress product has been fast-tracked to help small businesses get immediate access to funding to support and grow their operations as the country looks to recover from the worst effects of the coronavirus pandemic. BizExpress Online is available via NetBank and the CommBank app providing real time decisions and funding of up to $100k for customers in as little as 12 minutes.
