Banking on tomorrow

For a property manager overseeing hundreds of tenants, half an hour spent reconciling rental payments every day may not sound transformative. But hand those 30 minutes back, day after day, and suddenly there’s time to speak with clients, pursue new business or simply clear work that might otherwise spill into the evening.

To Kerryn Saward, Executive General Manager, Specialist Sales and Client Solutions at Commonwealth Bank, that is where the real promise of innovation lies.

“Technology once reserved for only the largest businesses is now readily accessible to businesses of all sizes – from small businesses through to large corporations. And it’s unlocking immense productivity opportunities,” Saward tells The CEO Magazine.

Commonwealth Bank’s Haseda Fazlic, Executive General Manager, Commercial Banking, sees that opportunity through a complementary lens. While technology may be changing what businesses achieve, she says resilience and the ability to keep investing through uncertainty is what determines who converts that potential into sustainable growth.

“Organizations that responsibly embrace technology, data and AI to remove friction, improve decision-making and empower their people will create lasting competitive advantage,” Fazlic says.

It’s a telling snapshot of how the role of business banking itself is changing.

As one of Australia’s leading providers of financial services, Commonwealth Bank (CommBank) spans retail, premium, business and institutional banking, alongside funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and sharebroking products and services. With more than 800,000 shareholders and over 52,000 employees, its scale gives the institution a panoramic view of the Australian economy.

Where Saward and Fazlic are interested is in what happens when that scale gets personal. Businesses today are contending with stubborn cost pressures, geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain disruption, rapidly evolving technology and customers whose expectations refuse to stand still.

What they need from a bank, the two executives argue, is changing too.

“Capital is often the easy part,” Saward says.

Fazlic puts it another way. “Today’s businesses are looking for insight, speed and a trusted partner,” she explains.

“They want someone who can provide insights and resources to help them navigate both opportunities and emerging risks.”

Beyond the balance

The shift, Saward believes, starts with understanding an industry deeply enough to identify what customers actually need and then turning that understanding into solutions.

That’s where CommBank’s current scale comes in, with visibility over more than 40 percent of Australia’s payment flows, giving it access to aggregated data and insights that can reveal changing spending patterns, demand and customer behavior.

“That enables us to create rich customer insights, moving from data to insight in a way that supports their business,” Saward says.

But data alone isn’t enough. Sector knowledge is also becoming increasingly important.

“To me, it’s the difference between being asked to quote something versus being asked what we think,” she says.

This understanding is also shaping the solutions CommBank develops.

“We co-create with our customers,” Saward says. “I’m incredibly proud of the way we work closely with the real estate sector to deeply understand the challenges they have and work through how we can use technology, innovation and data to develop new solutions.”

Saward believes agentic AI will accelerate that shift as it moves from experimentation into everyday operating models and commerce. CommBank is responding through initiatives, including CommBank Business Innovation, which gives Australian businesses access to training in AI and innovation.

Yet technological ambition, she stresses, cannot come at the expense of responsibility.

“Being famous for doing it safely and within our guardrails is what we want to be known for,” Saward says.

“Trust is something that takes a long time to gain, but can be lost in a heartbeat.”

Trust at scale

Where Saward’s focus is on translating industry and customer understanding into solutions, the opportunity – in Fazlic’s view – lies in bringing Commbank’s breadth of capability together around each customer, ensuring relationships remain personal.

“What sets CommBank apart is the combination of our national scale, deep local presence and the breadth of capability we bring to every customer relationship,” Fazlic says.

This breadth means customers can draw on expertise spanning transaction banking, working capital, trade and asset finance, markets, sustainability, cyber, risk and industry sectors, with relationship bankers connecting those capabilities to the individual needs and ambitions of the business.

“Customers value partners who understand these dynamics, because better context leads to better conversations and more confident decisions,” she explains.

Fazlic believes technology should strengthen those relationships rather than dilute them.

“Technology and AI don’t replace relationships, they enhance them by allowing our people to spend more time understanding customers’ ambitions and helping them navigate opportunities and challenges,” she says.

But bringing the right expertise and technology to the table is only part of the equation. For Fazlic, what ultimately earns a customer’s confidence is execution.

“Trust is built through consistent delivery, transparent conversations and delivering on commitments,” she says. “Trust is our greatest differentiator.”

Leading with purpose

The transformation underway in business banking is also changing what leadership looks like.

“Transformation should never become an objective in itself,” Fazlic insists. “Its purpose is to make us better for our customers by creating simpler experiences, stronger relationships and better outcomes.”

This philosophy puts people at the center of technological change.

“My first action in delivering transformation is creating clarity around what success looks like and providing the context teams need to make sound decisions while avoiding unnecessary complexity and process,” she says.

Saward has had plenty of opportunity to observe how leadership evolves. She recently celebrated 20 years with CommBank, despite joining after a career in consulting and financial services with no expectation she would remain for anything close to two decades.

“The ability to have impact and so many different careers within this organization has been incredibly powerful,” she says.

“As banking changes and we move beyond products, services and deep specialization, it requires a different skill set. Deep listening, empathy and human connection are becoming increasingly important.

“So as I’ve built out my team, it’s a strength I’m really excited to expand further. It’s also a skill that is rarely credited for its commercial value – that deep listening and empathy.”

Saward explains that she is also deliberately building diversity of experience into her own team, bringing together people from different professional backgrounds and disciplines.

Likewise, Fazlic sees investment in people and leadership capability as fundamental to preparing CommBank for the decade ahead.

“Our ambition is simple: to remain Australia’s most trusted banking partner for businesses as they navigate change and pursue sustainable growth,” she concludes.