MyState in small-time rip and replace program
The full year profit announcement from diversified financial services group, MyState, for 2015/16, confirmed that it would be introducing new internet and mobile platforms "later in the year" and "longer term, the transition to a single core banking platform with a single data centre location will also improve performance and risk management." MyState's annual result was strong, although it did include included a one-off software write-off expense of A$1 million. CEO Melos Sulicich said the extra software expense covers the system write-off for The Rock. He said this was a one-off because all the other systems had been written down. Like its much bigger rivals, MyState is in the midst of a major technology upgrade. As Sulicich explained it, the company's two main regional banking businesses - the Rock in Central Queensland and MyState in Tasmania - are running on separate core banking platforms. "We are in the process of bringing them together. That will happen in the first half of next calendar year. To bring them together, we have to do some product work as well as technology will endeavour to communicate appropriately with our customers," Sulicich said. "This will leave MyState, in effect, as one banking ADI on one core banking platform and therefore de-risk the business," he said. As previously flagged, MyState is also upgrading the CRM system on its call centre in Hobart. "We have a relatively old system in place so we're replacing the call centre technology at the same time", Sulicich said. " The whole sweep of investments that were putting into a technology will enable our staff to deal with our customers much more efficiently."