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And so let's kind of turn our minds to open banking and neo banking. We've seen success in the UK and Australia where customers are able to be too more easily switch banks or be offered more competitive services and products from third party financial companies. But how has A and Z approached adopting open banking and tech in Australia and will we be taking the same approach here in New Zealand.
So actually, the neo banking thing has largely been a failure and I think we should just call it as it is. I mean, most of the neo banks who started here in Australia have subsequently closed or been a quiet yeah. And the reason for that, and again on being overly critical probably and overly a bit unfair, is because they didn't there's nothing neo about what they're offering
was to a customer, there was nothing new. They still took deposits and made light and you know large Okay, the act was a bit sexier, and you know there were some nice features around it, but the fundamental proposition was the same.
Right.
In fact, you could argue it was worse because they didn't have the breadth of service as a big bank had, and really importantly, they didn't have the stability that a big bank hats. Yeah in terms of the credit quality and the diversification benefits that we had. So I and that doesn't mean we should ignore technology. But where the really profound change hasn't been neo banking per se, has
been real innovation, which is truly new proposition. So whether it's a revolute or wise or the way that or bone now po later on those sorts of things, so different ways of engaging with your financials, right, those are really where the innovation has come. Now. The challenges on a big bank is how do you engineer yourself to have the best of both big, stable, diverse and innovative,
fast clever propositions. Well that's our strategy. That's why with launched d A m Z plus our new retail platform, which is we've got roundups too. But we're the only major bank who can do it because we've built ourselves in a modern, contemporary stack. Now, everybody criticized us for doing it because a cost a gazillion dollars, cost a lot of money to do, but once you get there, what we're seeing today's the advantage. We're only two years in market.
The cost to service a customer on Plus is thirty five percent lower than it is in our traditional bank now. A year ago it was twenty percent lower. So it's getting the gaps widening. So that's our future. I think the future is all about how do we embrace new technology, So we use open banking and Plus. Using open banking, you can go in and you can import your balances and transactions to view them from one hundred and ten other banks in Australia, any of them, and see it
all and see your consolidated financials. That's really really cool. Now we're the only major bank that does that as well, because we've invested in the technology stack that allows it.
I read someth with it. About seven percent of the A and Z code written last year was generated by AI. I think it's hub copilot. Can you tell us a bit about how you envision AI technology changed it the operational nature of A and Z and also the banking industry as a whole.
I spent a bit of time up in California recently, and the future is as generative AI and I know probably people are sick of hearing about it, and there's no doubt there's an element of overhype. That's true in any new technology. But I've seen that future, and the
future is going to come in two ways. All of the banks, we'll all everybody will start using these co pilots that are embedded in every single tech tool we have, Microsoft Outlook, it will be in Salesforce, it will be into every tech tool we have your phone, and they'll be great, and they'll make us all more efficient, just like email made us all more efficient. But the benefits of that won't differentiate you. They'll all get competed away for the benefit of customers, but you still have to
do it great. The real opportunity is how do you then take those AI tools and intelligent automation that comes with it advanced analytics and embed those in propositions. Yeah, so imagine if on your an SID plus you had a virtual personal banker who you can ask questions of. Am I going to be able to for to go on holiday this year? Tell me where my money went last month? Talk to me about am I saving enough
to form my retirement? All the banks will do the productivity stuff, contact centers, all that some who have the right tech platforms, we're able to build better propositions and that's obviously where we aspire to be. In Australia and in New Zealand.
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