Kiwibank is planning to announce a deal to change its core computer system over the next three years.Chairman Sir Michael Cullen told the New Zealand Parliament's Finance and Expenditure Select Committee that he expected to announce the winner of a tender for a new core system when the bank released its half-year results, which are due on February 24.Cullen said the state-owned bank had gone through a process of selecting its preferred bidder over the last year and had whittled it down to two providers. The final decision was made before Christmas.Kiwibank adopted the Ultracs system, developed by Melbourne-based Ultradata, when it launched in 2002, but it has since outgrown this system, Cullen said."It was designed for Australian credit unions and we are the sole customer in New Zealand," he said.Kiwibank reviewed its core system in 2009 and decided in early 2010 to stay with Ultracs. Since then its customer numbers have grown from 700,000 to over 850,000 and Kiwibank is looking to widen the number of products it provides per customer, including selling more complex types of insurance as well as funds' management products.Cullen would not identify which supplier Kiwibank had chosen, but, when asked if the system was the same as one of the systems used by the four bigger banks, he suggested Kiwibank would choose one of the systems used in New Zealand. "We are not pathfinders in this regard," he said.He added that Kiwibank would pay a relatively low price for the licensing of the system it would use, and most of the spending would be done internally with its own staff.ANZ in New Zealand adopted the Systematics system used by its National Bank brand in late 2012. BNZ is also considering replacing its own core system.Meanwhile, Cullen reiterated comments from last year that Kiwibank's growth remained constrained by the Government's reluctance to stump up more capital to fund that growth and to help it comply with the tougher capital requirements of recent years.He said the bank's staff had learned to adjust to a different way of growing as the bank matured. Previously, staff had focused on growing market share at one per cent a year. But they are now adjusting to offering more different types of products, such as insurance, credit cards and funds' management, to customers whose main banking relationship is already with Kiwibank. These customers had not been "fully farmed" in the past, Cullen said.