Technology driving ME Bank’s growth plans

ME Bank will complete a $60 million IT transformation project in 2014, boosted by the rollout of a service that enables new and existing customers to open their own transaction accounts online within minutes.

ME Bank, which is owned by a super fund, is hoping the new service and other technology improvements will help it double personal and business customer numbers from 280,000 today to at least 500,000 in three to four years.

Kathryn Hawkins, CIO at ME Bank, said the bank had ambitious growth plans that will enable it to “challenge the majors”.

The online service – which runs on the Pegasystems Business Process Management platform – verifies customers’ identities online and provides them with an account number, BSB and Internet banking login. It then dispatches a transaction card which is shipped to the customer within days.

ME Bank’s remaining deposit products will be moved to the new platform in early 2014, with its loan products to be migrated later in the year.

The bank’s deposit and loan products will also be moved onto its new Temenos T24 core CRM and product lifecycle management platform.

ME Bank does not operate any shopfront branches and instead has adopted a workplace banking approach where mobile bankers provide banking services at members’ workplaces.

Earlier this year the bank launched what it claimed to be Australia’s first Workplace Banking Kiosk at Telstra’s contact centre in Melbourne’s CBD.

These kiosks operate as a mini-branch and include an ATM, a video phone to access the bank’s call centre and a private office space for meetings with a banker, while also providing access to Internet banking.

Hawkins said under the transformation initiative, the bank is delivering 24 technology solutions over 15 projects in four phases.