Bank of Queensland narrows down contenders, HP included

Correction: This article originally stated HP was not in the running. HP is in fact still in the running for this contract.

Four unnamed tech companies are in the running to be Bank of Queensland's (BoQ) next IT service provider, including the bank's current provider — HP.

BoQ has confirmed with ZDNet that it continues to undertake a due diligence process and four companies remain in the process, and HP is one of them.

The bank initialised the process late last year when BoQ chief information Julie Bale announced the bank was going to embark on a culling of its IT suppliers as it seeks to move toward a simplified IT environment.

"Our biggest priority is to review our big IT sourcing contract we have in place with HP. It is a 10-and-a-half-year contract, and comes up for renewal next year," she said at the time.

"We had outsourced 100 percent of our IT 10 years ago, but that is now fractured, and we are down to about 40 percent. My big challenge is to get that cleaned up.

"We will be looking to clean that up and also reduce the 84 vendors we have in our current backyard."

BoQ joins a list of Australian banks that are undertaking a transformation process of their IT environment. Commonwealth Bank has been tackling an IT revamp, worth AU$580 million, since 2008.

Meanwhile, Westpac has been investing over AU$1.5 billion since 2009 in modernising its IT structure. Similarly, National Australia Bank promised a new core banking system back in 2011.