Holmes Institute: Report on the Impact of IT Systems for CBA

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of Information Technology (IT) systems on the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). It begins by establishing the need and importance of IT within the banking sector, highlighting how digitization and technological advancements have revolutionized business processes. The report delves into the specific applications of IT within CBA, including electronic payment systems, MICR technology, Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT), and Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS). It then explores the benefits and advantages that IT brings to CBA, such as increased efficiency, transparency, and the introduction of mobile banking services. The report also acknowledges the risks associated with IT implementation, including cyber security threats and data management challenges. Finally, it outlines strategies for maintaining and monitoring IT systems within CBA, emphasizing the importance of data integrity, rigorous audits, and internal controls. The report concludes that the modernization of services through IT is crucial for CBA's continued success and positive impact on its customers.

Running head: IMPACT OF IT SYSTEMS FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
Impact of IT Systems for Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1IMPACT OF IT SYSTEMS FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
Table of Contents
1. Introduction....................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion......................................................................................................................2
2.1 Need of IT within the Business................................................................................2
2.2 Importance of IT for Business Survival....................................................................2
2.3 Importance of applying IT within CBA......................................................................3
2.4 Ways in which IT would be used within CBA...........................................................3
2.5 Benefits and Advantages brought to IT by CBA......................................................3
2.6 Risks with the Impact of IT over CBA......................................................................4
2.7 Ways to maintain and monitor IT in CBA.................................................................4
3. Conclusion.....................................................................................................................5
References.........................................................................................................................6

2IMPACT OF IT SYSTEMS FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
1. Introduction
Digitization within the banking sector can be discussed as the most vital
component that has been made in the recent times. With the impact of such kind of
facilitation of IT in the banking sector, it has been highly been helpful for the banking
sector to make a serious impact over the lives of the people. With the high impact of IT
in the sector, it has helped the sector to improve and stabilise the business processes of
the sector. The discussion in this research would put the primary focus over the various
kind of aspects in relation to the impacts of IT that have been made over
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Holmlund, Strandvik and Lähteenmäki 2017).
Although there are several risks that are in association with the impacts of IT but the
major benefits would be helpful for removing the risks made over the sector. The
discussion would also cover several important aspects that are in relation to the
improving factors made by IT in the banking area.
2. Discussion
2.1 Need of IT within the Business
The CBA, which has made their tremendous impact over the banking sector has
covered a wide range of aspects in the recent years. Some of the major services that
are offered by CBA in the present times are – banking, investments, home buying,
retiring and super, business and institutional (Commbank.com.au 2019). The discussed
sectors are the most common forms of aspects that are made within the banking sector.
Hence, there is a high need of IT in the business of CBA, which would mostly impact the
business scenario and lead to more form of positive impacts.
In the recent times, there is a high need for digitisation of resources for the
banking sector. There are different kind of changes that are made within the market.
Hence, the use of IT within the business of CBA could be perceived as ‘enabling
resource’, which would further help in the development of dynamics based on the
scenario of the fast changing market (Schmidt, Drews and Schirmer 2017). The different
kind of software packages that are developed in the recent times would highly help the
banking sector of CBA to advance further.
2.2 Importance of IT for Business Survival
In order to remain successful and stay ahead in the competitive market, there is
a wide need for the growth of profitability and stability in the business sector. Different
analysts and investors have focused over the impacts that have been mad with the rise
of IT in the sector. There are different factors that could help any business to be
successful in the competitive market. In the recent times, there are different forms of
applications based on IT, which could be applied to the core business areas. Such kind
of applications would be helpful for bringing a positive vibe towards the business area
and make them to survive in the existing market.
With the impacts by IT in the business area, it would also help them to analyse
over specific data and thus provide them with tools based on planning of their entire
journey (Lentner, Szegedi and Tatay 2015). Cloud computing, big data and other kind of
useful tools would be highly helpful for making many forms of positive impacts towards
the business.

3IMPACT OF IT SYSTEMS FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
2.3 Importance of applying IT within CBA
From the perspective of the business growth of CBA, it could be discussed that
IT could highly be helpful for making a positive impact towards the business areas. With
the impact of IT in CBA, it would help the businesses of CBA to improvise their existing
banking processes and thus serve their customers in a better way. The core banking
sector has been majorly used in the past years and has shown many kind of impact that
might be made with the growing impact of technology.
The different areas in which IT could make their impacts are: planning for the
factors of cost, designing the technical aspects of the business, installation of new
technology with the banking areas, training the employees and other factors. These
different areas would need to be highly focused upon in order to bring better kind of
facilities for the people who use their services (Gros and Schoenmaker 2014). The use
of digitisation within the business of CBA would help the banking premises to improve
their services.
2.4 Ways in which IT would be used within CBA
The banking sector of the CBA would make different forms of impact in the highly
competitive market. Such kind of use of technology would also be made based on the
demands of the end users. The use of technology in the banking sector would also help
in improving the performance factor of banks (Moravcikova, Stefanikova and Rypakova
2015). The use of IT would provide a framework for the industry of banking in order to
meet the challenges that would be present within the highly competitive market.
Some of the ways in which IT could be proving their impacts over the CBA are:
1. Settlement System and Electronic Payment – This kind of system could be
defined as an innovative way of producing of receipts. These kind of instruments would
be used in order to replace the cash based methods.
2. Impact of MICR Technology – With the help of such kind of techniques, it
would help in discovering the limitation of clearing of bank cheques. This would also
enable to gain credit in a quick manner (Simatele 2015). This kind of technology would
help the banking systems and customers to eliminate the need for customers for
speeding the process of collecting and defining cheque-based facility.
3. Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) – EFT can be defined as a technique based
on maintaining the mechanism of electronic funds transfer.
4. Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) – The RTGS system can be defined as
a technique based on maintaining a funds transfer mechanism based on transferring of
money from one bank sector to another (Moravcikova, Stefanikova and Rypakova
2015). This could be performed in real-time and on a gross basis. This can be thus
defined as an advanced money transfer system that would be created within the
banking channel of CBA.
2.5 Benefits and Advantages brought to IT by CBA
With the different forms of impacts made by IT within the core banking sector of
CBA, some of the benefits and advantages of the sector could be described as follows:

4IMPACT OF IT SYSTEMS FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
1. IT would help the banking sector to become much more reliable and thus
make the different processes to be faster (Bhat and Darzi 2016). High factors based on
performance, retrieval of records and documentation could be improved and thus the
services would be offered in a faster manner.
2. With the innovative features provided by MICR cheque processing system, the
process of performing cheques would become much more efficient and faster.
3. With the help of IT services, there would be a high level of transparency that
would be offered within the banking sector.
4. The introduction of mobile banking services would help the customers to
access their accounts from anywhere and at any point of time (Agwu and Carter 2014).
5. To facilitate better kind of services, it would highly help the banks to introduce
different forms of automated services such as cheque deposit machine, cash deposit
machine, passbook printing machine.
2.6 Risks with the Impact of IT over CBA
However, with the major impact of IT in the banking sector, there can be major
forms of risks that could be made within CBA. Some of the most affected risks are
discussed as follows:
1. Incident response risks and cyber security risks
2. Third-party and choosing of proper technological vendor
3. Risks based on data management
4. Risks based on IT program execution (Cummins and Weiss 2014)
5. Risks for technological operations
6. Continuity risks and IT resiliency
2.7 Ways to maintain and monitor IT in CBA
Securing of information and maintaining the aspect of data integrity could be
termed as one of the primary challenge for the banking sector. The financial institution
of CBA would make different kind of choices based on selecting the proper kind of
technology that would help them in protecting the sensitive data with the help of robust
form of security solutions. The IT department within CBA should perform rigorous audits
over the use of software (Hall, Mikes and Millo 2015). They should thus identify the
critical pain points. This would also help them to identify the weakness and thus also be
able to control them. These banks should also make use of latest software technologies
based on noticing the areas in which the core banking software would be creating any
kind of problem.
The internal controls should be performed by the IT supervisors who should be
provided with the responsibility of reacting to changing circumstances and varying
conditions. The senior management team would need to evaluate the entire scenario of
business performed by the business (Noe et al. 2017). These kind of strategies would
be highly helpful for gaining a clear control over the IT environment within CBA.

5IMPACT OF IT SYSTEMS FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
3. Conclusion
From the discussion supported in the research, it can be discussed that with the
modernizing of services based on IT in the sector, the CBA would be highly benefiting
from the advanced mode of service. The traditional model of growth for the banking
sector could be defined as less impactful. However, the discussion in this research
focuses over the use of advanced IT services for bringing a positive impact over the
customers and making a positive impact over the banking sector of CBA. These banks
have also modernized their services by bringing new equipment that are able to serve
their customers in the best possible way. Hence, it can be concluded that the banking
sector has improved their network connectivity and set different forms of parameters.
With the rise of IT services, within the banking sector, the information is readily available
to customers and branch staff thus helping them to understand the efficiencies. Hence,
it could be concluded that such kind of technology, the banking services of CBA would
improve and bring different kind of positive impact towards the organisation.

6IMPACT OF IT SYSTEMS FOR COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
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