Bendigo and Adelaide Bank to continue technology spending

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank will increase its investment in technology and digital initiatives this financial year to build on benefits from IT transformation and modernisation efforts seen in FY21.

The bank's technology and transformation spend reached $87.2 million in FY21, a $30.3 million increase from the prior year.

Chief financial officer Travis Crouch said the spending would continue into FY22, though not to the same level.

"Looking forward to FY22, as we continue to execute on our growth and transformation program, as we focus on simplification and modernisation, we expect an increase in the level of investment in technology and digital initiatives to take full advantage of the benefits this will provide in future periods - albeit, we're talking an increase in the order of $10 million to $20 million total investment," Crouch said.

For FY21, managing director Marnie Baker told investors that technology spend covered “embedding core digital capabilities to improve the customer experience and digitising and automating core processes."

“We continue to simplify and modernise our business, reduce brand complexity and build our multicloud and API capability and deliver technology simplification,” Baker said.

Baker added the bank upskilled staff and fast-tracked its cloud journey with seven percent of applications now onboarded to the cloud.

Crouch said technology investment also went into delivering "key regulatory obligations, such as open banking and improved data centre resiliency."

"Our business transformation is leveraging our unique human, digital and community strength to build an experience for our customers that is simple and convenient and enables our customers to interact with us how and when they want," he said.

"This investment will allow us to drive our revenue growth further, and increasingly build economies of scale to go with it. 

"[It] will also continue to deliver effective cost management initiatives, productivity improvements and customer experience enhancements as we add features to our digital channels to enable our customers to do more."

The investment in technology and transformation helped drive revenue improvements, particularly in the second half of FY21, according to Crouch.

The bank also announced on Monday its intended acquisition of Melbourne fintech Ferocia for $116 million.

Ferocia is the technology behind Bendigo and Adelaide’s banking app and neobank Up.

Baker said as the bank accelerates its “pace of innovation and growth” customers will also benefit from Ferocia’s capabilities being brought in-house.

The bank reported an overall statutory net profit after tax of $524 million for FY21, 171 percent up on the previous year.