Mahesh Sharma | August 06, 2008
NATIONAL Australia Bank is set to combine two of its biggest technology teams to support the bank's massive core banking overhaul.
The bank today said it had selected Oracle for the first phase of its core banking revamp that could cost around $1 billion. It will be rolled out over the next five years.Infosys was the other technology vendor shortlisted for the first phase, which will involve the delivery of a platform for a new business division called Star Direct.
Star Direct will include a specialised, low-cost, high-service direct bank that will be launched later this year, NAB said.
The Australian understands that NAB chief information officer Michelle Tredenick today told technology staff it would be combining its Enterprise Services Technology (EST) and Technology Banking Australia (T-BA) teams to support the delivery of the project.
“This decision is consistent with our intent to move to an integrated technology platform and create a truly services focused organisation,” Ms Tredenick wrote in a message on the bank’s intranet today.
It’s understood there are about 900 staff in TBA and 400 staff in EST.
The new 1300-strong division will represent half of NAB’s overall IT workforce, and will be overseen by T-BA head Craig Bright, Ms Tredenick said.
This will take effect from August 18, with the teams integrated over the following months.
As part of the restructure, EST head Stephen Phillips will move to the Star Direct project as its technology lead.
It was recently revealed in The Australian that Mr Bright told NAB technology staff the size of its workforce could drop to less than 1000 over the next five years.
The second and subsequent phases of NAB’s core banking overhaul will be rolled out in parallel. Planning for the following stages is expected to take another six months, NAB said.
Additional reporting: Mitchell Bingemann