National Australia Bank says a newly launched “innovation alliance” with Israel’s Bank Leumi and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) will help it build better solutions that meet the needs of a customer base whose expectations are rapidly changing.
“Our customers want us to do things differently and strategic partnerships like this allow us to access ideas, talent and capabilities of like-minded organisations, in this case the opportunity to tap into two leading international banks, to help us gain world-class insights from global leaders to benefit our customers,” said NAB executive general manager, NAB Labs, Jonathan Davey.
“We want to bring the best solutions from around the world to our customers and this alliance helps us to do that,” Davey said in a statement.
“We see this as an opportunity to jointly develop solutions to problems that are common to our respective customers, leveraging the diverse capabilities that we each bring to the table.
“We’re competing in a rapidly changing world. Everyday new fintechs are challenging the status-quo; we have to not just keep up, but also find ways to get in front. By combining global knowledge and insights we hope to be able to accelerate learning and the development of solutions for our customers.”
“Our ability to be able to leverage learnings, talents, solutions from other markets is incredibly important,” the NAB executive said.
NAB has already worked with CIBC to use Ripple’s blockchain technology in a proof of concept involving international payments.
Davey said that NAB’s alliance with Bank Leumi will help the bank access Israeli-developed cyber security and data analytics technologies.