ANZ continues re-platforming onto ANZ Plus

ANZ Banking Group is preparing to launch a digital home loan through its new retail banking platform ANZ Plus next year.

The bank will pilot a digital home loan with staff in the coming weeks before the introduction of a fully automated digital home loan, initially focused on the re-finance market, later in 2023.

ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott told investors during the bank's 2022 full-year results call the repositioning of the Australian retail bank onto ANZ Plus “continues at pace and the early signs are terrific.

“We're really pleased with how it's performing both technically and in terms of customer engagement.”

He told investors during the bank’s 2022 full-year results ANZ Plus deposits “reached $1.25 billion yesterday, and currently around a third of customers joining ANZ Plus are new to ANZ.”

He said the “ANZ Plus is more than just a new app” but rather an “entirely new stack of technology built by our ANZx team, sitting on a simplified existing core”.  

The national bank launched the ANZ Plus app in March this year, as its first customer-facing offering through its major banking transformation program ANZx.

Beyond its digital home loans release later this year, the bank is looking to roll out credit card and personal loan products on the platform around 2024.

He said “it was too early to share granular detail on performance” on ANZ Plus, but more metrics will be released next year.

Elliott added on the platform there are “a series of automated control bots that run real-time health checks on our most critical controls and we're adding new bots regularly.”

"That level of monitoring and control just is not available on our legacy systems and allows us to grow Plus safely at pace.

“We're confident ANZ Plus is more attractive to customers… we've been focused on testing the proposition and acquiring new customers."

Digital home loans expectations 

ANZ will “shortly” begin the migration of existing its customers onto the new platform while “the same time we'll continue to enrich the savings experience and launch true end-to-end and digital home loans”.

“Digital home loans will be piloted with staff in a matter of weeks before launching in market next year.

“It will not be a digital front end and analog back end, but a fully digital end-to-end experience from application all the way through to settlement.”

Its digital home loan rollout was initially set to launch at the end of 2022 as part of the ANZ Plus phase two rollout.

Elliott said ANZ “will continue to offer coaching and support at any stage in the [home loan] process for those that need it.

He said ANZ Plus also implemented 20 new cloud-based platforms including continued release of new banking features, 360 view of its customers via a CRM platform, product management and control platform over the year.

Elliott pointed to its partnership with European payments company Wordline, noting its “a globally competitive technology race and taking a domestic only approach in terms of product development just as not credible.”

So far, through the partnership, the bank has already set up beverage maker Naked Life in Decentraland and set them up as a merchant in the virtual world.

Through the lessons of Covid-19 Elliott said the bank can now analyse and gather data via postcodes to identify areas of falling house values “and actively monitor them and help as needed.”

Suncorp

Speaking on its Suncorp acquisition, Elliott said while the bank is still finalising approvals ANZ “have a team in place already planning for integration and growth”.

“We're introducing a new corporate structure that will be a subject of a shareholder vote in December.

“This is not about us becoming a fintech or venture capital firm. We are proposing this structure which is very common for financial institutions around the world to make our core bank stronger and unlock shareholder value to better serve customers.”

He said is hoped the new structure will be "up and running early in the new year” and ANZ is also “already preparing well for the Suncorp approval and the ultimate integration.”

ANZ chief financial officer Farhan Faruqui said the bank “increased investment spend to almost $2.2 billion this year, with a larger proportion of that spend focused on growth and simplification”.

ANZ reported a statutory profit after tax for the full year of $7.1 billion, up 16 percent from the previous year.

Cash profit from continuing operations was $6.5 billion, up 5 percent when compared with the prior year.