Jew World Order

Apple’s iPad is about to get front-and-centre billing inside ANZ Bank. The company announced yesterday that frontline customer-service staff will soon use the devices to perform “financial health checks” for customers.

ANZ Bank told ZDNet Australia yesterday that the devices are currently being deployed into the branch network on a trial basis.

” At the moment, we are using them in conversation with customers to conduct ‘A to Z reviews’, which are like financial health checks, and help us address specific financial goals,” ANZ said in a statement yesterday.

The iPad has had a shaky history within ANZ Bank over the past 12 months. The bank’s legal team had banned the use of the Apple tablet by board members during meetings. Anne Weatherston, ANZ Bank’s chief information officer, was reported as saying that notes taken on the devices during board meetings aren’t secured within the company’s firewall, making ownership of the document problematic if it would need to be recalled for legal reasons at a later date.

Weatherston added at the time, however, that she expected Apple to create an app for the enterprise that “wraps it all together” at some point in the future.

ANZ joins the list of banks in Australia already using the iPad for direct customer-service activities. Both the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and the National Australia Bank (NAB) have opened concept branches, filled with consumer devices like the Apple iPad. These high-tech facility pilots are designed to enhance the customer experience of those who continue to visit branches, according to NAB and CBA.

Australia’s major banks also have a strong focus on building apps for new tablet and smartphone devices that better connect customers to their finances.

ANZ beefs up tech-security spend

ANZ Bank reported in its multibillion-dollar results briefing yesterday that its technology infrastructure operating expenses, particularly in the field of IT security, have increased since the second half of 2011.

ANZ Bank hasn’t yet responded to questions on the details of its security-spending boost, but Weatherston has said that the organisation wanted to respond to security threats presented by hacktivist groups like Anonymous and the now-defunct Lulz Security, also known as LulzSec.

Weatherston last year flagged that shoring up the bank’s defences would carry a cost, but added that the cost of inaction would be much higher.

“[Protecting data] will require increasing levels of annual expenditure, and, indeed, changes to the way in which we design and architect systems. Increasingly, a loss of customer data by any organisation, as we know from the Sony experience, regularly achieves front-page news,” Weatherston said last year.

ANZ Bank’s chief executive officer, Mike Smith, yesterday reported a half-yearly profit figure of $2.92 billion for the period ending 31 March 2012.

(Front page image credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)