DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AT CUA (now Great Southern Bank)
• Customer-centric approach
• International partnership
• Industry first for customer choice
I’m very proud to have led the team that built a strong digital capability at CUA. For various reasons, including that CUA is an amalgam of 171 credit unions, the organisation still had many paper-based processes.
Obviously, with the growing popularity of smartphones and mobile payments, this had to be fixed. I introduced an “anywhere anytime” strategic goal to focus on CUA’s capability online and specifically on the smartphone.
I was committed to achieving our digital agenda by partnering with experienced digital developers, rather than spend the members’ money on building “things” that others could do better, faster and cheaper. So I identified several international banks in Silicon Valley and then developed and managed a collaboration model with Umpqua Bank, Nationwide Bank and DeVolks Bank. This partnership enabled CUA to integrate a new distribution channel using APIs to deliver “digital with a human touch”.
The outcome, called iM CUA, transformed the Australian marketplace for personal banking, by being the first digital platform to enable the customer to select and chat to their own personal banker.
I oversaw the delivery of a new payment platform with the result that CUA was among the very first to offer all the apps in the digital wallet (Apple Pay, Google Pay etc). Our new mobile banking app gave new customers the ability to open an account and begin to transact in 3 minutes, via their preferred device.
CUA’s customer experience was transformed through fully leveraging digital platforms and technology, and the operating model resulted in new capabilities for team members based in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. CUA was recognised with two prestigious industry awards acknowledging this achievement.