As banks take on the task of managing information through data analytics, creating an integrated digital experience emerged as a key priority in the year ahead, according to Australia’s and New Zealand’s financial services CIOs.

On the agenda for the top CIOs was transformational change, with the end goal to achieve simplification across all platforms, to deliver a seamless experience for customers.

Lisa Gray, Group Executive, Enterprise Services and Transformation, National Australia Bank (NAB) said the key to the success of NAB’s transformation program is to make things simple, “Our transformation priorities are focused on making things simple for our people and customers. Continuing to build an integrated customer experience will be the priority across 2014 to 2015 as we progress NAB’s total technology environment transformation.”

Julie Bale, CIO, Bank of Queensland also singled out the need to drive transformational change as the main priority for BOQ, with the banks’ move to a new head office later this year the pinnacle of their journey.

Bale pointed to architectural growth as the driver for this, “our architectural simplification agenda is maturing and driving a lot of value and capability into the organisation and will continue to shape our future,” she said.

At Bankwest, transformation is also on the agenda, Andy Weir, Executive General Manager, Enterprise Services and CIO, said building an integrated digital experience was important to make life easier for Bankwest customers.

“We are looking to deepen our data analytics capabilities in order to be able to focus on delivering what really matters to our customers… we are planning further transformation of our delivery models to increase agility, value to customers and colleague engagement,” he said.

In New Zealand, transforming to create the omni-channel experience is both a challenge and a priority, according to Shelley Ruha, Director of Enterprise Services at Bank of New Zealand.

“Our customers are changing the way they want to interact with us. They are increasingly mobile and looking for a genuinely omni-channel experience. Because our systems were not built to be used in this way, creating that experience for our customers is complex and a key priority,” she said.

Something which is also on the agenda for Simon Pomeroy, Chief Digital Officer at Westpac New Zealand, “A key priority for us is delivering our new fully-responsive online banking platform that allows customers to do all of their banking online, giving them the same tasks and processes on whichever device they use,” he said.

However, data and analytics still take precedence, according to Ruha, “Data quality, data analytics, creating a single view of our customers, and information security are all part of that mix. The biggest challenge for us is how we use this valuable resource in a manner that provides meaningful benefits to our customers.”

While Pomeroy said extending the use of data has been promising for Westpac in New Zealand, “We have already achieved some excellent results in being able to have more targeted conversations with customers about products and services they need as their circumstances change.”