(1 March 2010 –Australia) Suncorp has started to investigate whether the bank should replace its current Hogan core banking platform, although the bank’s chief information officers, Jeff Smith, believes there is life left in the legacy technology.Suncorp would be following the lead of other Australian banks such as CBA who have already instituted major programs to replace their core banking platforms.
Core banking platforms constitute the base on which a bank’s technology platform is constructed and replacing the technology can be an extremely expensive process costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Jeff Smith, CIO, Suncorp said that the Hogan platform operated quite well, but the software’s owner CSC hadn’t upgraded it in a long time.
The bank is taking a look at that now to decide if it wants to upgrade to something bigger, Mr Smith added.
Mr Smith also noted more modern options were available from vendors like Oracle and SAP, although he noted the market was limited.
Suncorp are just looking through that now, because it makes sense to do that if they are really good value propositions, Mr Smith highlighted.