IT Implementation and Risks: Commonwealth Bank of Australia

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Information Technology (IT) strategies implemented by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). It explores the bank's utilization of IT, highlighting the adoption of mobile banking, the upgrade to a UNIX system, and the integration of loan systems. The report emphasizes the importance of IT for the bank's survival and competitive advantage, detailing the benefits such as improved system performance, optimized operations, and enhanced customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it addresses the IT risks faced by CBA, particularly cyber security threats, and discusses the controls and measures the bank should implement to protect customer data and ensure the success of its IT initiatives. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of IT for CBA's future and the need for proactive risk management.

Running head: IT FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
IT FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
Name of the Student
Name of the Organization
Author Note

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Introduction
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is mainly a multinational bank of Australis
possessing a number of various businesses across several countries. It has been observed that
there are certain kinds of alternations of IT in this largest bank of Australia. Some of the
alternations will be involving the technology of mobile, update of the older computer of
mainframe with the particular system of UNIX and then finally the integration of system of
obtaining personal loans with the particular system of home loan. The main aim of the paper
is to particularly describe the need for IT for this bank, importance of IT for the survival of
the bank and showing how this bank utilise IT and what are all the various advantages of
bringing in IT. It will also be comprising of all the various kinds of risks which IT may be
bringing to the bank.
Discussion
Bank utilising IT
It can be said that there is definitely a great need for the bank to utilise IT. In the
development of the economy of Australia, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia is noticed to
have been playing a very important role. By the utilisation of technology, it has been noticed
that there may be a great increment in the productivity as well as in the efficiency. It has not
only helped a lot in incrementing the effectiveness of the cost but has even provided a lot of
help to viable all the various transactions of smaller value (Schlagwein, Thorogood and
Willcocks 2014). ATMs, several kinds of cards, internet-based banking as well as mobile
banking are some of the various names of very few results of the procedure of
computerization in the banking sector of Australia. IT in the sector of banking basically refers
to the utilisation of all the information which will be highly sophisticated and technologies of
communication altogether with the science of computer for particularly enabling banks for

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directly offering a far better service to all of the customers in a much safer and affordable
way and will be even be sustaining a great competitive advantage over some other banks of
Australia (Chornous and Ursulenko 2013).
Need for IT for business survival
IT has been observed to have been become one of the important parts of the banking
sector. The CBA has actually realized that fact that technology will be definitely
incrementing the productivity of the business by the decrement of their great expenditure
(Martins, Oliveira and Popovič 2014). Adaption of the IT has really become a huge need for
the bank to sustain properly. The best and the fastest technology of the current days will be
becoming obsolete for the very next day and certain kinds of weaknesses of the technology
which has become totally obsolete can be a huge reason for the huge loss of the business.
Hence, it is really very much essential for the bank to be up to date with all the recent
technologies. Australian banking has undergone a huge transformation over the few last
decades (Webster 2014). Having started from moving manually the sector of banking has
become a technological position which has been greatly leading. Such a kind of transfer will
have been taking place in a very short period of time with a much lower cost. Entry of the
specific kinds of technologies within the Australian banking sector has greatly noticed several
measures of liberalization (Baptista and Oliveira 2015). IT has been playing a great role in
reforming the Commonwealth Bank of Australia by directly encouraging towards great
flexibility as well as competition in the system and also for incrementing the standards of
banking in Australia to all the various best practices internationally. IT is not only altering the
environment but also altering the specific kind of relationship with all the various customers
(Guo and Liang 2016). IT has been not only able to broke off all the various barriers but has
also brought a number of various products which are superior.

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Requirements for applying IT
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is observed to have been greatly depending
upon IT that will be definitely requiring various professionals for the development, support
and also for the implementation. There may be a great chance of facing various kinds of
obstacles for the implementation of IT in the bank (Aboelmaged and Gebba 2013). It has
been well noticed that there is a lack of engineers, professional programs of training, high
rate of turnover of the various staffs and also a high rate of resistance towards alternation.
There is a huge requirement for preparing a proper panning very much carefully for the
development or the implementation of IT in the business. A particular plan which will be
totally computerised will be the basis for the implementation of successful solution of IT
(Silvestro and Lustrato 2014). Such plans must be connected very much closely to that of all
the various strategies, procedures as well as the priorities of the bank.
Way of using IT by Commonwealth Bank of Australia
There have been a number of alternations of IT in the bank and these alternations of
IT of the commonwealth bank have greatly introduced the technology of mobile, updated the
older mainframe computer with the particular system of UNIX and has even integrated the
system of personal loan with that of the system of home loan (Pilkington 2016). The CBA is
basically the first bank of Australia which has been actually able to properly implement the
total function of the service of mobile banking. Hence, CBA has become the leading bank for
the service of mobile banking even though the particular service has been implemented for
the first time by some of the competitors involving ANZ as well as NAB. CBA has been
actually able to reveal the basic fact that the utilisation of the service of mobile banking are
incrementing rapidly from the year 2009 by which the specific team f management has finally
come up to a decision of providing the continuity towards the improvement of the service of
mobile banking with the technology in the nearer future which will be entirely up-to-date.

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The bank has been upgraded the particular system which has been based upon the mainframe
windows with the system of UNIX which has further provided with various advantages for
CBA.
Benefits of IT for CBA
As a result of the introduction of the technology of mobile and update of the older
mainframe computers with the system of UNIX, there have been a number of various
advantages as well as benefits for CBA which particularly involves the improvement of the
performance of the system, optimization of the various daily operations and also the
enhancement of the entire productivity with that of the decrement of the cost of the system.
Hence, it has been well observed that CBA has really got up the huge excellency in the
satisfaction of the customers by offering with the excellent performance and also great
service quality which has been provided by the bank (Khanna and Gupta 2015). CBA has
also been able to attract a number of various customers by particularly integrating their
specific system of personal loan with that of the system of home loan. This has actually made
very much easier for all the various customers in opting for several kinds of service of loan as
per all the various requirements of the customers.
IT risks of CBA
It has been observed that there are certain cases which has been observed where
several hackers have stolen all the various data which are hugely personal of some customers.
Even though the bank has taken a number of various measures of security after the hackers
have contacted with al of them, it has been really surprising to see that all such procedures
have not been put into perfect place before. The risk of cyber security has been the
considered to be the mostly prevalent in the CBA and it mostly refers to the particular risk
which has been undertaken by CBA for keeping all the various information which are
electronic totally safe from the damage. The risk of cyber security may be arising from a

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broad range of various internal as well as external factors at the banks like the huge lack of
the segregation of the privilege of the user, missing business controls of the transactions, bad
policies of the password, inadequate controls of logical access and the disadvantages in the
vetting of the personnel (Hanafizadeh et al. 2014). A number of various measures must be
well undertaken by the bank for ensuring that all the various controls will be properly applied
across various units as well as divisions of CBA for ensuring that there are no permissions
towards all the accesses being totally granted without any kind of knowledge. There may be
great chance of various dangerous breaches which will be greatly affecting the privacy and
the confidentiality of the data of the customers of the bank (Nor and Pearson 2015). It is the
duty of the bank to adopt controls as well as measures for the protection of various
information of the customers of the bank (Shaikh and Karjaluoto 2015). It is to be well
known that the new technologies will be definitely bringing in with a number of various risks
as well as problems and hence along with the utilisation of various resources, there must also
be the presence of various measures as well as controls for the protection of the data and
information of various customers.
Controls to be taken
All the Board of Directors as well as the Senior management of the CBA Group are
actually hugely committed for the preservation of all the privacy, confidentiality as well as
the integrity of all the various information assets which are both electronic as well as physical
throughout the entire group for ensuring the huge success of the information technology of
CBA, objectives of the business and the security (Vegh 2013). The Board has well developed
several policies that will be offering various guidelines for the proper utilisation of the
information technology resources and well set out several policies as well as the best
practices for providing the particular basis for offering with the IT solutions which will be
greatly effective (Matthews 2013).

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that the implementation of IT in CBA will be bringing in with a
number of risks as well which must be taken care of. It is also true that the great utilisation of
IT in the CBA will be playing a very much important role in obtaining a huge competitive
advantage and the it is really essential for the sustainability of the business. It is also to be
remembered that there may be a number of risks as well which will be related to the
implementation of IT in the business. The Board of CBA must be cognizant that that all the
various cyber threats may be posing a huge significant risk for the group of CBAs in
delivering the top-class services to all the various customers.

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