Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s new chief information officer Anne Weatherston is settling into her new role, the bank said today, with meetings with key internal stakeholders taking up her time.
The CIO began work in January, after re-locating to Australia from the UK, where she had held the top technology position for the past four years. Her arrival ends a long period of searching for the bank after its then-CIO Peter Dalton was re-assigned internally in late 2008.
“Anne has spent the majority of her time with other members of ANZ’s management board, as well as her wider team,” a spokesperson for the bank said today.
“She has also made it a priority to visit key technology locations, both domestic and international, and will be continuing to visit these over the coming few weeks.” ANZ operates a substantial offshore technology operation in Bangalore, with around 3,500 staff.
The bank said the new CIO had not been taking meetings with any technology vendors so far, but expected to start meeting with suppliers in due course.
The Financial Review newspaper this morning reported that the bank had kicked off an internal review of its IT operations following Weatherston’s arrival. But the spokesperson didn’t confirm the report. “Anne has only had her feet under the desk for a couple of weeks and has been focused on getting across the issues and priorities of the bank,” they said.
Weatherson’s arrival comes during a period of substantive change in the IT operations of Australia’s major banks.
Some, such as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the National Australia Bank, have embarked on projects to replace their core banking systems – which in some cases have been in place for decades. End user applications such as internet banking are built on top of the core platforms.
But ANZ has so far remained coy on whether it plans to make a move on its core, although it has been rolling out the Finacle platform in its Asia-Pacific operations.