Like most of South Africa’s big banks, Nedbank is on a mission to reform and re-engineer its IT system, using it to attract new business, cut costs and roll out new services.
The Johannesburg-based bank long ago decided to avoid either a ‘big bang’ approach to remaking its digital systems or a more opportunistic ‘patching’ process. The former is often costly and assumes technology develops in a straight line. The latter makes short-term financial sense but leaves the business owner bereft of a consistent digital strategy.
Instead, Nedbank favoured a managed evolution programme – rationalizing, standardizing and simplifying its core banking system to increase inter-bank agility and to reduce complexity and maintenance costs. It reckons it has managed to digitize eight out of 10 customer journeys and more than 140 services across its network.
The data suggest it has worked. Nedbank says the approach resulted directly in a 104% year-on-year jump in digital sales in 2022, beating expectations.