Australia’s financial services industry has led the economy in technology investment for business solutions, most notably banking apps, a study has found. Satisfaction with internet banking at the Big Four banks sat at 91 percent, according to the recently released report, Setting aside the burdens of the past: The possibilities of technology-driven change in Australia.
The report, produced by Deloitte’s Centre for the Edge, studied how well executives understood and were taking advantage of the changes around them and explored “the exponential rate of change that was fundamentally altering the global business environment”.
Six months prior to December 2013, 5.2 million Australians conducted internet banking using an app on a mobile phone or tablet, which is equivalent to 27 percent of the Australian population aged over 14. Businesses and consumers in Australia were keen to take up mobile banking apps as a result of new payment technologies, said Deloitte’s chief edge officer Peter Williams.
Online banks such as ING Direct, which experienced a 280% rise in mobile transactions in 2012, have launched new apps as mobile is poised to overtake web-based banking. Commonwealth Bank has already experienced the tipping point – more than half of the bank’s customers access its online platform NetBank with a mobile device or use one of its applications such as Kaching or the CommBank mobile application.
Although the nation’s financial service industry stands out, not all industries had adapted quickly to the shift in consumer preferences.
“The nation’s continued prosperity hinges on our ability to use technological prowess to find new solutions to old problems. Many industries are shifting their investment to the creation of new workflows, services and partner communities,” Williams said in a press release.
The report showed Australia’s focus had shifted from labour and towards investments in new technology for more efficient workflows under a transition from an industrial and agricultural economy to a creative, service-based economy.
Key findings in Deloitte’s Australian Shift Index showed a trend in both capital over labour and a knowledgeable economy. Manual workers used to be the economy’s traditional engine room but the nation’s future prosperity depended on creative employees who were skilled at new knowledge flows to improve productivity, said Williams.