NAB has signed a multimillion-dollar, long-term deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to further drive NAB’s cloud-first technology strategy. The extended and expanded collaboration is part of NAB’s ambitious multi-cloud approach, which has seen it become a market-leader in transition to the cloud.

The latest deal between the two organisations can enable NAB to accelerate the migration of key critical workloads to AWS. The renewed collaboration also includes NAB adopting the latest AWS innovations, including AWS Graviton processors designed to deliver the best price-to-performance for cloud workloads, helping NAB improve efficiency and sustainability in the cloud.

NAB Group Executive Technology and Enterprise Operations, Patrick Wright, said NAB’s substantial investment in the cloud and collaboration with AWS was enabling it to be more innovative, agile, and cost effective in delivering great customer experiences.

“The cloud is now ingrained at NAB. Our Simple Home Loans, internet banking, NAB Connect online business platform, and recently launched NAB Now Pay Later product are just some of our customer services being enabled by the cloud,” Mr Wright said.

“The cloud is powering our ability to deliver new and improved services to market more quickly for our customers, with added reliability. NAB also benefits from the investments made by AWS in highly secure and resilient global infrastructure. In combination with NAB’s investments in security, we create a highly secure environment to keep our customers and the bank safe.”

NAB started accelerating its cloud strategy in 2018 and has now moved 70% of its applications to cloud. NAB recently became the first major Australian bank to move its business banking online platform to the cloud, migrated its Global FX & Trading Platform (Murex) to the cloud, and collaborated with AWS and three other global banks to launch the Global Open Finance Challenge.

“We’ve had a long and proud relationship with AWS dating back to 2013 and we are excited to extend this collaboration,” Mr Wright said.

“AWS is critical in our technology strategy and is helping us deliver new and innovative experiences for our customers. We will soon complete our roll-out of Amazon Connect, AWS’s cloud contact centre offering, which will be delivered across all of NAB Group’s call centres.”

Amazon Connect is an easy-to-use omnichannel cloud contact centre that helps businesses provide superior customer service at a lower cost. This AWS service uses artificial intelligence (AI) to match NAB customers to the most appropriate, highly-skilled, Australia-based contact centre team member. Amazon Connect forms part of NAB’s digital internet banking experience so customers can call via a button within the Internet Banking app and be fully authenticated without having to go through a list of personal questions on the phone.

Mr Wright said NAB was benefitting from Amazon Connect’s superior automation and AI capabilities, which are helping the bank operate customer contact centres more efficiently and provide a more tailored experience for customers.

“We want to deliver more personalised experiences for customers, aligned to their preferences in how they want to interact with us,” Mr Wright said.

NAB has also recently optimised costs for its cloud-based infrastructure. Using AWS services and products, including AWS Graviton, NAB implemented a program to save over $1 million per month in cloud costs, promoting a company culture focused on both efficiency and innovation for customers.

AWS Managing Director in Australia and New Zealand, Rianne Van Veldhuizen, said AWS was excited to play a key role in supporting NAB’s ambition to deliver innovative and intuitive digital experiences for customers.

“Cloud is one of the defining technologies of the financial services industry and AWS is helping banking leaders like NAB drive innovation and business growth. One of the key benefits of NAB’s transformation is the ability for the bank to become data-driven, which allows their data scientists, engineers, marketers, and other roles to make better informed decisions, faster,” Ms Van Veldhuizen said.

“We’re proud to help NAB continue to leverage the scale, resilience, and security of AWS to accelerate product development, operate more efficiently and more cost effectively while exceeding customer expectations and meeting the necessary compliance requirements.”

NAB is one of the largest technology talent employers in the southern hemisphere. The bank has trained thousands of colleagues in cloud skills since 2018 through its Cloud Guild program, resulting in more than 4500 industry-recognised certifications.

Today at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, AWS’s annual technology conference for the global cloud computing community, AWS also announced AWS Industry Quest: Financial Services, a new game-based learning experience on AWS Skill Builder that delivers training for real-world cloud solutions for the financial services industry. NAB is AWS’s first Australian beta customer to test this experience.