A spokesperson for the bank told ZDNet Australia that the staff cuts were in no way related to Monday's announcement of a planned restucture of its technology, operations and procurement division.
-The job cuts are coming from the branch network following a customer review," the spokesperson said. -The restructuring of the technology, operations and procurement division will see the different business units become responsible for the technology associated with their service, and take on end-to-end control of their customer interaction."
The spokesperson said the restructure would result in the bank's CIO, Bob McKinnon, reporting directly to CEO David Murray. He went on to describe the restructure as symptomatic of the increasing importance placed on IT within the bank's operations, and denied the change would result in tighter controls on IT spending within the bank.
However, the restructure will result in the departure of Russell Scrimshaw, group Eexecutive for technology, operations and procurement.
-The restructure will strengthen the long term, strategic positioning of technology within the bank's operations," the spokesperson said. -It is logical for the CIO to report directly to the CEO."
Pointing to recent expansion of the bank's call centre, the spokesperson said electronic banking was set to play an increasingly important role in the bank's future.
-We have seen good increases in Internet banking as well as other forms of electronic banking, such as EFTPOS, ATMs and telephone banking," he said. -Our customers are looking for a more flexible approach to banking, according to the most recent review of customer usage."
The spokesperson said that the bank's first priority was to redeploy staff, however pointed out that such redeployment would not require retraining.
