Teachers bank appoints new CIO

The Teachers Credit Union has appointed former Westpac technology executive Dave Chapman as its chief information officer, following the departure of IT manager Colin Thomas this year.

Chapman has previously overseen a program to integrate Westpac systems with those of its subsidiary, St.George Bank, from April 2010.

When Westpac’s integration program was postponed, Chapman was offered a compliance role, but decided to move to the Teachers Credit Union to work more closely with IT.

His chief information officer role was newly created by the credit union to support its proposed transition to a mutual bank.

The Teachers Credit Union will become Teachers Mutual Bank on 1 April, as long as the move is approved by financial services regulator APRA.

Chapman said the credit union’s IT was in good shape when he joined, noting that he would look to members and the board for advice on prioritising further IT investments.

He expected to focus on compliance and regulatory work initially, to support the 1 April transition.

Also on the cards were: a core banking software version upgrade; data warehousing upgrade; and thin client roll-out for staff.

Chapman also hoped to promote the credit union’s mobile, internet banking and contactless payment capabilities to its members, among whom the abilities of existing contactless credit cards “may not be fully appreciated”.

The Teachers Credit Union claims to be the country's third largest credit union and currently provides banking services to 160,000 members in New South Wales, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory.

In recent years, the credit union has expanded its IBM analytics suite, implemented EMC storage and more recently implemented a unified communications for a 126-seat call centre.