CIO Address – Speech Notes

CIO Address – Speech Notes

Peter Yarrington - Chief Information Officer

Welcome

The BNZ is committed to providing our customers - and New Zealanders - with access to banking services that are reliable, efficient and most of all - SAFE.

We recognise that there is a worldwide increase in fraud on credit and debit cards. Last year, Australia payments fraud totalled nearly $200M. Of that massive total, credit card fraud made up a staggering 75%.

Figures for NZ are not fully available and while our historical experience has been good, we must ensure NZ remains an unattractive destination for credit card skimmers and fraudsters.

While the risks overseas are increasing New Zealanders remain keen travellers and need the convenience of credit and debit card facilities while offshore.

Like everyone else, I pause for that second every time I hand my card over to a sales assistant or waiter when I am overseas. I think "Is this the one - is this the time my card will be duplicated and I will find some unknown transactions on my statement?”

Even though I work for a bank, I dread the thought of finding those fraudulent charges on my statement. I dread the thought of having to prove those transactions weren't mine, with the associated hassle of having my card cancelled and replaced.

So the team at BNZ wants our customers to be able to use their cards freely and confidently, not constantly worrying about fraud.

Today you are going to hear some exciting announcements about new technology developed here in NZ that will help to reduce card fraud. You are also going to hear about how BNZ is doing other things to protect customers from losses caused by fraud.

I’d like to introduce Owen Loeffellechner who will talk to you some more about these exciting developments.

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Thanks ....

The technology innovations and policy changes you just heard about did not happen by accident.

The technical experts who created LEN are also working on creating new and better ways to protect our customers from credit card fraud.

The work that has been done is, we believe, a world first and we are working to market this New Zealand innovation across the globe.

We have applied for, and been granted, a number of overseas patents for the LEN technology.

We have already implemented this technology at the BNZ and so our customers are already protected.

In the period we have had LEN implemented, losses from the most common form of card fraud have more than halved.

As you have seen, LEN not only stops fraudulent transactions, it also helps us to identify the source of these transactions. This means that customers are protected quickly and effectively from losses due to card fraud.

And we will not stop there with innovations in this area. The BNZ technology team and business will be continuing to work to make it tougher to steal money via credit cards.

We look forward to answering any questions you might have about the technology and our approach at BNZ.

Thank you.

ENDS

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