Commonwealth Bank of Australia (“CommBank”) is that country’s largest consumer bank, and has built its leadership, in part, on technology innovation. Those skills and processes now uniquely position it to grow the business side of its portfolio.
Arguably, its love affair with tech started all the way back in the 1980s, when CommBank debuted some of the first ATMs, and then partnered with its competitors to develop a homegrown bank card. It was one of the first banks to embrace online banking in 1997.
Then came Apple’s first iPhone in 2007, which inaugurated what could be called the consumerification of business tech. The device obliterated many of the old-fashioned distinctions between what individuals and institutions expected in terms of user experience and benefits (with disastrous results for companies like RIMS, now BlackBerry).
It also ushered in the era of apps and cloud ubiquity, which brought once-complex computer software programs within reach (and budget) for small businesses, while inspiring larger ones to adopt packaged solutions…
Read the entire essay at Forbes