Westpac focuses on customer tech

Westpac's group executive for technology, Bob McKinnon, has outlined the bank's strategy during the group's IT and productivity update, including the decision to delay the integration of its core systems with St George Bank's Hogan platform until 2014, reports CIO.

Instead, the bank will focus on customer-facing technologies, McKinnon said. “In the interests of delivering better customer service, we see better value in integrating our customer management systems and this has been moved up in priorities.”

McKinnon summarised the work done by the bank since its merger with St George, including upgrading the infrastructure supporting major customer-facing systems, such as online banking and payments.

ClairMail, which helps banks process transactions via SMS, mobile Web and apps, said it has raised $13.8 million in an additional round of capital, according to MocoNews.

The round was led by Investor Growth Capital with existing investors, Jafco Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Outlook Ventures, also participating.

ClairMail, which estimates that 46% of the top 600 banks are planning to purchase or implement mobile banking strategies in 2010, will use the financing to grow its technology infrastructure and service capabilities to meet the growing demand for mobile financial services.

Citigroup will start a pilot next month for a new type of credit card that lets cardholders apply rewards they've earned by pressing a button on the card, writes Digital Transactions.

The pilot for the new card, which Citi has dubbed its '2G credit card', will start out with more than 100 users and will add more participants starting early next year, according to Terry O'Neil, executive VP of Citi's North American credit card division.

He says the bank will likely roll out the technology some time late in 2011. The project will allow the New York banking giant to better understand “how customers interact with the technology, how they use it,” O'Neil says.