Australia's biggest bank has gotten a whole lot bigger this year. Following a strong rally in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price, its market capitalisation is now within arm's reach of $200 billion.
However, the bank's valuation is not the only growing aspect of the company. In an interview with The AFR, CommBank's Chief Information Officer Brendan Hopper described a growing emphasis on technology and innovation internally.
Banking on tech
Commonwealth Bank has not so secretly been building out its digital offerings. The bank already boasts the largest internal technology team in Australia with around 4,000 engineers.
However, Mr Hopper revealed this will grow by more than 650 additional engineers over the coming months. The bold hiring program comes as the bank shifts its internal software development team to a more traditional tech company structure.
Currently, the Commonwealth Bank is hiring two engineers per day. While this might seem high already, the bank is looking to increase that rate dramatically. Commenting on the hiring spree, Hopper said:
It is also part of a wider tech simplification journey, where another part is about moving the enterprise to the cloud piece by piece, eliminating the problem of needing to have data centres and shifting hardware around, because cloud just lets you treat everything as a software problem
These engineers will be working on a range of digital products under the bank's umbrella.
Building beyond banking
This news follows Commonwealth Bank CEO, Matt Comyn's digital banking initiatives presentation held in May. In this presentation, Comyn announced the launch of a pilot program that allows customers to view account balances from other eligible financial institutions directly in the CommBank app.
Additionally, it was revealed Commonwealth Bank had acquired a 23% shareholding in online shopping start-up Little Birdie. Subscription-based wholesale electricity provider, Amber, was also added to the bank's investments.
These acquisitions and integrations are a part of CBA's attempt to push beyond simply being an ASX-listed bank. Instead, the company sees its future as being a customer-facing tech platform. Offering an ecosystem that engages consumers beyond their banking experience.
CBA tops ASX most valuable
With the Commonwealth Bank share price soaring to recorded highs in recent weeks, the bank is now ASX's most valuable company. At the time of writing, its market capitalisation is hovering around $178 billion.
The valuation puts ASX-listed CBA just outside the top 100 largest listed companies in the world. Its value wedges it between US giants Starbucks and IBM.
