CBA chief says bank's tech lead will drive market share gains

Commonwealth Bank chief Ian Narev says the technology lead the bank has over its major competitors will translate to market share gains.

In a video interview with News Ltd's Business Spectator, Narev reiterated the bank’s view that it is in the strongest competitive position as a result of its core banking modernisation program that was finished in October last year.

He said the project, which kicked off in 2008, “took an enormous amount of care, a good risk appetite and an enormous amount of money, a huge amount of managerial focus”, to deliver.

“So, if you believe that the capability we have is something banks need, then that takes four or five years to build minimum…and the others haven’t done it,” he told Business Spectator.

“Over time I expect it will go more to customer preference and this differentiation that we’re talking about will be seen by customers. And we particularly think it’s around this real time capability,” Narev said.

The bank chief agreed that part of the Commonwealth Bank's $1 billion investment in the upgrade was defensive in nature.

“Whether it’s Google, Yahoo, Apple, PayPal, or other device manufacturers, you can choose your competitor. All of them at some point have given thought to how they might play in financial services.

“Their strategies I think are still works in progress, but we feel that it’s very important to have a state of the art technology platform, so we’re able to compete not only with traditional banking models, but increasingly with technology and powered models as they become more significant.”