Fred Swanepoel (45)
Chief Information Officer: Nedbank Group and Group Executive: Group Technology

12 years’ service • BCom(Hons), MBA, SEPSA (Harvard and Wits Business School), AMP (Harvard, USA)

GROUP TECHNOLOGY

Group Technology is Nedbank’s centralised technology unit with responsibility for all components of the group’s technology processing, development and systems support. The group’s IT systems, databases, technology infrastructure, software development and IT project/programme management are centrally managed to provide economies of scale and to facilitate a cohesive groupwide service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology strategy.

REVIEW OF 2008

In an economic environment in which household debt increased client spending slowed and impairment levels rose. Group Technology faced very different business requirements (eg flexible and stable credit and collection processes and systems) to maintain service excellence in the business clusters. This increased the scale and complexity of the group’s IT operations. Group Technology supported and serviced the following areas in 2008:

• In terms of volumes Group Technology processed on average 4,8 million financial transactions daily across 384 systems in its mainframe and UNIX environments, running more than 32 000 online and batch programs daily. The number of Wintel servers grew to over 3 200.
• A total of 27 300 PCs, 12 400 printers, 47 000 voice devices and/or ports and 75 600 data connections were supported.
• The operational quality of service was improved. Serious outages and service disruptions reduced by 17% in number and by 30% in terms of time lost. These improvements were achieved despite a 9,5% year-on-year increase in changes to the environment.
• Benchmarking conducted during the year continued to reflect Group Technology as a cost-effective service provider.

In 2008 the market experienced a continued increase in internet fraud attempts, primarily through phishing. A welldefined phishing response process ensured that Nedbank’s losses were well-contained.

Group Technology remains convinced that the combination of the adoption of best-of-breed solutions and the reuse of existing legacy applications represents the right competitive strategy for Nedbank. To this end the following progress was made:

• The SOA Centre of Excellence was established. Patterns, processes and guidelines were defined, resulting in the first phase of common and reusable services being developed, deployed and reused. The Group Technology IT vision is based on SOA, which promotes business agility and flexibility.
• Initial hard- and software were procured, configured and implemented in the production environment.
• The retail self-service internet channels were refreshed comprehensively to enhance delivery.
• An upgrade of the client information system (including service enablement) was completed to provide an enhanced view of client information.
• The strategy and technology choice for the replacement of staff-assisted channels was ratified, and phases 1 and 2 are progressing according to schedule and budget.

Project Merlot – the synergy project for the outsourcing of all data and voice networks announced in conjunction with Old Mutual (South Africa) in 2005 – continues on track to deliver savings of R1 billion for both organisations over a five-year period. An independent benchmark confirmed that both parties are achieving targeted cost-efficiencies, operating off a well-structured contract. The infrastructure has been completely refreshed and is delivering in accordance with service level agreements.

The first quarter of 2008 saw an increase in load-shedding demands from Eskom and municipalities in South Africa. Nedbank’s primary and secondary data centres were required to run on diesel-generated backup power for over 160 hours during a three-month period. This was achieved without any service disruption. The power-generating facilities at both data centres have been upgraded, including the addition of another four diesel storage tanks at our primary site.

In 2008 more than 30 significant projects were implemented on time, according to budget and well within the industry benchmark of top-quartile performance. Productivity benchmarks in the innovation business continue to reflect improvements in cost and time delivery of function points. The capacity buildup over the past three years, as well as productivity improvements, has ensured that all the bank’s innovation requirements were serviced during the year.

Nedbank successfully delivered on its Swisscard contractual obligations in 2008. The execution of operational deliverables against contracted service levels remained at the highest standard with all critical service levels being consistently met. The financial performance for the year was very good, exceeding forecast profitability.

Group Technology has progressed satisfactorily against its Department of Trade and Industry (dti) employment equity targets, overachieving in the black middle and junior management levels.

Finally, a client satisfaction survey conducted with the help of over 5 000 employees in Nedbank showed a positive increase in the overall satisfaction rating from 68% to 71%, with an even greater increase in the number of delighted clients from 66% to 74%.

PROSPECTS

Group Technology will continue on its path to become Nedbank’s most highly rated and respected technology partner by the business clusters. This will be done through alignment with business clusters and divisions to ensure greater end-to-end accountability by functions in Group Technology.We will continue to build Nedbank’s future IT landscape for the three-year technology and business-aligned roadmaps. This will assist Group Technology in its continuous quest to provide flexible, cost-effective information technology solutions that evolve quickly and easily to suit the requirements of Nedbank Group’s business clusters.