ANZ tries to preserve corporate VPN bandwidth for frontline use

ANZ Banking Group CEO Shayne Elliott has advised some of its internal users to “not use certain systems” including its corporate remote access VPN to keep the bandwidth free for frontline staff.

In a video broadcast - mainly to staff - yesterday, Elliott was asked what more ANZ’s head office staff could do to support “frontline” - the bank’s customer-facing operations.

In response, Elliott urged for the use of IT platforms including ANZ Connect, which is the bank’s corporate remote access VPN, to be kept as free as possible for frontline use.

“As we're adapting to this new world we've asked people could you not use certain systems because we'd rather they were just used - so ANZ Connect, if you're not one of our most essential workforce, and they know who they are, please don't use it,” Elliott said.

“Because when you use it, even though you might think it's only for a few minutes and it's only me, that is taking away valuable bandwidth from somebody who's helping a customer who's in hardship or helping a small business sort out how they're going to get that overdraft request through.”

While much attention has been paid to the speed and capacity of end users’ residential connections with more people working from home due to COVID-19, remote access to corporate systems is likely to be a bottleneck at a number of organisations - even if ANZ is one of the few to publicise its thinking.

An ANZ spokesperson told iTnews that upgrades to ANZ Connect are being worked through at present.

“We have been upgrading the service over time as more of our people have begun working from home,” the spokesperson said.

“The vast majority of our staff who can work from home are doing so.

“Banking is an essential service and we are doing everything we can to maintain our operations without compromising the health and wellbeing of our staff and customers.”

Elliott, together with managing director for retail Katherine Bray, said there was an “extraordinary level of support” among ANZ teams and staff to work together to solve challenges in the wake of widespread COVID-19 closures.

Bray said “risk teams, product teams, and the legal team” had come together “to adapt our processes and adapt our policies to very rapidly respond to support customers and bankers.”

Elliott added that a COVID-19 customer hub on ANZ’s website was stood up in 72 hours.

“In our normal times [it] would have taken quite a long time to get up and running,” he said.