New Zealand-based Kiwibank is planning to invest $100m over a period of three-four years to deploy a new core banking platform from SAP.
The new platform will replace the 12yo Unisys-based system, developed by Ultradata, which was designed for smaller credit unions and was unable to manage the Kiwibank’s 840,000 customers.
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Kiwibank CEO, Paul Brock, said, "The core system upgrade project will take place progressively to avoid any disruption to existing services, but ensure the bank has the capability to manage growth and increasingly-complex technological advances in the banking industry."
However, a business consultant and tech commentator Lance Wiggs pointed out that the investment by Kiwibank is a risky move.
Wiggs was quoted by Stuff.co.nz as saying that SAP is a vast, complex and barely usable system for managing complex businesses, with a history of failure to deliver on promised costs and benefits.
Kiwibank communications manager, Bruce Thompson, said they believed there was nobody capable of producing what they were looking for within New Zealand.
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By GlobalData"They have considerable experience in providing banking platforms internationally, and it just fitted with our strategic growth plans.
"The $100m is an estimate over a three to four year period, but not a precise figure, because . . . IT costs can vary quite markedly," Thompson added.
