CBA a follower in innovation hubs

Beverley Head
CBA let NAB steal its thunder of a CBD-based innovation hub this week in the Fin, giving the latter a rare piece of decent PR.

Launching its Innovation Lab in central Sydney yesterday, Commonwealth Bank CEO Ian Narev pitched that being at technology's leading edge was a "life and death matter."

It follows in the footsteps of NAB, which opened The Village in Melbourne six months ago, and Westpac's recently opened Hive in Kogarah, NSW.  

The flurry of activity signals how important technology has become to the banks as they stare down a panoply of technology-fuelled disruptors such as Bitcoin, PayPal and ApplePay.

CBA declined to say how much it had invested in the centre but Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, group executive of institutional banking and markets, said that; "It was not a significant spend in the grand scheme of the Commonwealth Bank."

The 690 square metre facility bristles with technology including interactive smart boards, virtual reality stations, tracking beacons, tablets and usability labs which allow the bank to test user reaction to its software apps. A huge display screen also shows results from CBA's big data analysis - it claims to now see 40 per cent of all financial transactions in Australia.

The Lab has been set up with several different zones - for example innovation spaces, development 'garages' and utility labs - to allow CBA's Agile software development teams to work together on concepts, test them on users, and facilitate development.