ING Direct tech chief named Finance CIO of the Year

ING Direct's head of technology and operations Simon Andrews has been chosen by iTnews and his CIO peers as Finance CIO of the Year for his ambitious modernisation project.

Simon Andrews

In a first for the Australian banking industry, ING transferred its entire computing, network and storage infrastructure into a private cloud built using Microsoft, Cisco and NetApp technologies over the ANZAC Day long weekend last year.

The project touched every technology that runs the bank - anything that wouldn't fit within the new architecture was either replatformed or replaced.

It means the bank now has treasury systems and core banking that are as agile as its digital channels. Planned outages and planned DR testing are a thing of the past, and ING's IT team now have the freedom to spend their time on innovation rather than keeping the lights on.

"What an affirmation for the team," he said on accepting his award.

The team's efforts were noticed by the bank's global parent, which was so impressed that it has now adopted the Aussie platform strategy as standard across its worldwide operations.    

Andrews' project managed to stick its head above worthy finalists in the category - WorkCover Queensland and Teachers Mutual Bank -  which both attracted high scores for their customer-focused efforts.

The Benchmark awards ceremony was held at the 7th CIO Strategy Summit.