Tasmanian minnow MyState Bank today said its long-term investment in digitisation is paying off, with customer transactions increasingly happening through digital channels.
Newly-appointed CEO Brett Morgan told the bank’s earnings call today that the bank’s customer growth in the last six months was “driven by the digital acquisition of new customers”, something which has been “fast-forwarded” by Covid-19.
More than 9,500 customers joined in the half year, to a total of over 160,000 customers.
Customer transactions tell a similar story, growing 61 percent in three years, while branch transactions have fallen 45 percent in the same period.
MyState Bank’s internet banking now reaches 73 percent of its customers, 56 percent of its customers use eStatements, and online customer deposits passed $900 million by the end of 2021.
Morgan told iTnews, “MyState Bank is a traditional Tasmanian branch bank business”, which decided five years ago it had to invest in a digital transformation.
In that time, he said, the bank has invested $25 million in its technology and systems, and it expects to have an ongoing capital investment of $10 million a year.
One of the key decisions in that time was that the bank put its own middleware in place, Morgan said.
“We invested in our own middleware, which gives us control over our own destiny, in who we can partner with,” he explained.
Last year, the bank chose Temenos as a key technology partner.
Morgan said that helped drive a 50 percent uptake in digital transactions and he said further developments will go live shortly.
“What we have today is good, what we have tomorrow will be more modern and leading edge”, he said.
“Later this year … customers will have a better experience than they do today.”
The bank reported that its home loan book grew 11.4 percent to more than $6 billion for the first half of 2022, customer deposits were up 12.4 percent to nearly $5 billion, and its after-tax profit was $16.6 million.
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