EDS may be about to lose the core processing of its last major banking customer.
ANZ Bank has given EDS notice that, under its globalisation programme, it will migrate its New Zealand systems to Hogan, the banking software used by the parent bank in Australia.
Currently, EDS facilities-manages ANZ’s customer information system. The rest of the processing is done at EDS on the old Databank system, which has to be replaced anyway because it is not year 2000-compliant.
The most important driver in the decision was the fact that the master agreement with EDS was up for renewal, says Colin MacDonald, ANZ’s acting general manager operations and payment services.
“The agreement with EDS comes to an end in the next 12 to 18 months,” he says.
“It was a logical time to review the future direction of our accounts processing.”
The bank also wants to make better use of its skills and this will lead to a significant amount of work for its IT staff.
ANZ in New Zealand already uses some of Hogan, in its customer information system. MacDonald says deposits and loans will be added to that.
“The relationship with EDS will change significantly,” he says. “Over the next few months we will work closely with them to define how the relationship will work.
“I anticipate using EDS’ resources to help us do the conversion.”
It will be some time before a decision is made on where the processing will be physically located.
MacDonald says ANZ is looking at a number of options. One of those is relocating the processing to the bank’s head office in Melbourne, though issues such as communications costs will first have to be addressed.
EDS chief executive Eddie Bates had no comment to make other than to say the implications of the decision have yet to be defined.