I attended a conference by FST on the Future of Banking in New Zealand this week. Besides the buzz in the town around the Rugby World Cup starting next week, it was obvious that there is a healthy glow of innovation coming from the market in New Zealand.

Many speakers focussed on social media or mobile innovation, but it was interesting also that core system renewal and multi channel systems were high on the agenda. I am sure FST will be putting the presentations and some commentary on their website http://www.fst.net.au/ over the next week, but some of my observations (in no particular order of importance) were:

- one panellist said that normally their IT spend was usually allocated 30% strategy, 30% unplanned, 30% compliance but last year 90% was compliance!
- the standards – it’s not international standards committees but the systems that hold the market share – means iPhone and iPad must be considered
- the challenges in banking – baked in inflexibility on one side from bank legacy systems, and consumer expectation/experience demanding fast enjoyable interactions on the other, with a high compliance burden
- a number of banks testing the use of iPads in branch to improve customer interaction
- systems are not depreciated like a car or other asset (although in an accounting sense they are, but the context was in terms of replacing when they have reached end of effective life) – but they should be!
- the Christchurch earthquake caused all businesses to review and improve their BCP and DR systems, but also lead to a number of innovations such as mobile business banking vehicles, fundraising campaigns, social media events, and even online claims systems.

All in all, some smart thought from across the ditch…go the wallabies…