ANZ to expand mobile apps after early success
ANZ Bank has tripled its use of its mobile merchant app since October, and is planning to expand it to New Zealand.
In its full-year results released on Tuesday, the bank highlighted that it had experienced a 30 percent monthly growth in FastPay customers, which now has 7,000 users. In April this year, the bank reported having just 2,300 downloads by business customers.
The application runs on iPhone and iPad, and allows businesses to accept card sales and directly email receipts to customers. It has processed over 140,000 transactions since it was made available, and the bank plans to support Android in the future.
It has also been seeing significant success on its consumer side. It believes its goMoney app is the most downloaded banking application in New Zealand. Digital transactions are up 5 percent year on year, representing 57 percent of all transactions.
The bank is already seeing over 25 million goMoney logins each month, and reports 1 million users since it launched in 2010. During this period, it also processed over AU$56 billion in transactions.
Since its half-year results, it has spent slightly more on its computer expenses (AU$7 million, or 1 percent) due to depreciation and amortisation, but compared to the full-year results, the total figure has been reduced by around AU$140 million (10 percent). This was largely due to an AU$274 million impairment of software assets in 2012.
The bank has not broken down its Banking on Australia project and its investments in technology, instead lumping it with "other" expenses that include advertising. From its half-yearly results, it has increased expenditure by around AU$100 million (15 percent). Its full-year comparison represents an increase of AU$37 million (3 percent).
A total of AU$1.3 billion has been spent on growth and transformation within the bank, which would include the Banking on Australia initiative and its plans to expand to Asia.
Net profit for the bank after tax for the full year was AU$6.3 billion, up 11 percent.