NAB hits milestone with tech role insourcing

NAB is continuing to reduce reliance on contractors in its technology function, while increasing cloud adoption and use of AI by its engineers, under an ongoing technology modernisation program.

The bank’s CEO Andrew Irvine told its full-year results briefing that the employee-contractor split is now 70/30.

It was the exact opposite of that at 30/70 back in FY18.

The bank had managed to shrink the third-party proportion of its tech workforce to 38 percent at the end of FY24, and it is now down to around 29 percent at the end of FY25.

“Seventy-one (71) percent of our technology and enterprise operations workforce are now NAB colleagues, reducing our reliance on third parties,” Irvine told the investor call.

The bank also made progress on other year-on-year on other metrics that it has used for its technology modernisation.

NAB now has 90 percent of its apps migrated to the cloud, up from 85 percent six months ago.

It now also has more than “4500 engineers using Gen AI for software development” - this was reported as “around” 2500 engineers just six months ago.

Irvine also provided other metrics around AI take-up internally, noting that “15,000 colleagues” now use AI in some form to reduce time on “routine tasks” and some 1400 frontline staff use an AI-enabled “knowledge management tool” to assist customers.

“We have been using generative and other forms of AI at NAB for many years, but this technology is changing at a rapid pace and we continue to evolve quickly,” Irvine said.

“As we look to deploy new tools and solutions such as agentic AI to deliver value, we'll continue to adopt a business-led approach to ensure the work we are doing is aligned to our strategic ambitions and solves real business challenges. 

“We have identified four broad priority areas to focus for Gen AI and agentic AI tools: customers, colleagues, software development and operations. 

“Each of these areas will deliver improved customer experience and provide significant productivity benefits”.

AI work at NAB is likely to accelerate further once Pete Steel joins the bank as its group executive for digital, data and AI later this month.

NAB reported a statutory net profit of $6.76 billion for FY25, a fraction below the $6.96 billion it reported in FY24.