Westpac CIO Dave Curran to retire
Westpac's chief information officer Dave Curran will be retiring from his position at the end of January next year, to be replaced by Citi's Craig Bright.
Curran has led the bank's technology function since 2014, the bank said, and has been instrumental in its digital transformation, including projects such as its customer service hub.
"Since joining Westpac in 2014, Dave has led a fundamental step change in advancing Westpac's technology capabilities, helping us to continue to improve the customer experience while simultaneously improving productivity and risk management," said Westpac CEO Brain Hartzer.
"Under Dave's leadership, the stability and efficiency of our underlying technology infrastructure has been materially strengthened, which has reduced outages and improved cybersecurity."
Hartzer called Curran a "passionate advocate" for addressing the skills shortage in technology and the gender balance issues in the industry.
Curran will remain on the board of the Westpac Bicentennial Foundation, a scholarship fund that focuses on Australian education and leadership.
His replacement, Craig Bright, is currently chief technology officer for Citi's Global Consumer Banking, and previously served as the bank's managing director for Global Consumer Infrastructure in New York. Prior to this, he was global head of Infrastructure and Service Delivery with Barclays; NAB's general manager for technology banking and CIO for Institutional Markets and Services; and also served with Ernst and Young for nearly seven years.
Harzter said that Bright, who will start with Westpac this December, brings expertise in leading technology functions for large, complex multi-country banking operations, and more than 30 years' experience in technology and financial services.
"Throughout his career, he has been part of some of the world's leading banking transformation programs, and is now at the forefront of future thinking on digital, mobile, and data and analytics strategies for one of the world's largest banks," he said.
Westpac reported AU$4.2 billion in after-tax profit for the first half of FY18, up 7 percent year on year after spending AU$1.3 billion on transforming the bank over the past 12 months.
For the six-month period, net interest income was AU$8.3 billion, while net operating income was AU$11.2 billion. Revenue was up 4 percent to AU$11.2 billion.
PREVIOUS AND RELATED COVERAGE
<="" p="" rel="follow">
- <="" p="" rel="follow"> <="" p="" rel="follow">
<="" p="" rel="follow">
<="" p="" rel="follow"> <="" p="" rel="follow">Westpac laying the foundation for useful AI
The bank's CIO has revealed the five-platform approach to revamping how Westpac delivers services.
Westpac turns to IBM for hybrid cloud
Hosted across two of IBM's Australian datacentres, the bank's new hybrid cloud is expected to speed up service delivery.
NAB stands up enterprise security team and appoints new security chief
David Fairman will be focused on combining physical and cyber security at the bank.
Commonwealth Bank hires new execs, touting digital and cultural transformation
Westpac adopted 'workforce revolution' to combat technology-based job losses
Although Westpac has laid-off about 1,000 staff over the past 24 months, its CEO has called the hype of technology replacing jobs 'overdone'.
How NAB is taking Australia's skills shortage into its own hands(TechRepublic)
The National Australia Bank is seeking 2,000 tech-focused staff and sending more than 2,000 of its existing staff through training provided by AWS to combat the looming skills shortage.