Innovation: Beyond cool...

The best technology just helps users get on with their lives, says Fred Ohlsson.

The challenge is to transcend technology with solutions that are universally accepted, says Fred Ohlsson.

Businesses around the world are coming to realise that, to be relevant, innovation is not just about technology but about what people want and need and how they choose to interact and do business.

The real challenge is not just to come up with amazing "inventions", but to ensure they're meeting genuine customer needs, are easily adopted and can quickly be made available to everyone. In other words, to take innovation through amazing and new - and beyond cool and fashionable - into normal.

The best technology is so closely aligned to users' needs they stop seeing it as technology at all. It's just something that helps them get on with their lives.

Developing solutions that meet this test is as much about knowing your customers as knowing technology. It's about understanding what people expect from you in terms of digital capability, insights, culture, and how they want to connect with you - and then delivering this on a scale that makes it the norm.

But successful businesses also understand that even the new normal is not a fixed end point. Customer preferences and behaviour are constantly changing.

Businesses need to ensure they never stop innovating and adapting the way they serve and engage with their customers in line with these evolving needs.

Nowhere is this truer than in banking, where technology's great quest for a new normal is set to take a major leap with the advent of the mobile wallet.

The mobile wallet could transform the way people pay for goods and services in New Zealand, with contactless mobile payments ending the need to carry a physical wallet full of debit and credit cards and cash.

Its potential to enable people to make mobile payments anywhere, any time is genuinely exciting. But the ultimate measure of its success will be when it's considered as ordinary as the physical wallet it replaces.

The full potential of a mobile wallet can only be achieved once the wallet and terminals have been rolled out on a scale that makes it accessible to all and wallet payments so universal they are considered routine.

Regular users of an accessible, secure and easy-to-use mobile wallet will think not of the cutting edge technology behind it, but the everyday coffee, petrol or groceries it enables them to buy more quickly and conveniently.

As a bank that shares a financial relationship with one in two New Zealanders, ANZ has a particular contribution to make in delivering this new normal.

We see contactless mobile payments as the way of the future and are ready to play a major role in making them mainstream as quickly as possible.

We recognise that an important part of gaining widespread acceptance for new technology is to satisfy users that it is secure. In the case of the mobile wallet, this means using the latest encryption technology to protect customers' financial information.

Another factor businesses need to take into account when innovating to meet changing needs is that not all customers have the same requirements. In fields such as mobile payments, a "one-size-fits-all" approach is not an option.

Banks must provide solutions tailored to differing needs.

At ANZ, this has meant developing distinct mobile solutions for every type of customer, from our hundreds of thousands of retail customers to the country's largest institutional businesses.

Continuing to meet evolving needs also means engaging and listening carefully to your customers, and acting on their feedback. We are applying this principle with upcoming improvements to ANZ FastPay, our app enabling small businesses to process Visa and MasterCard credit and debit card payments on the spot using their smartphones.

The idea behind payment apps for this market is that owners of small firms - think plumbers, builders or mobile dog groomers - want the convenience of taking card payments from customers on the go.

Their primary concern is not gadgets or software - cutting edge as they may be - but meeting customer needs by accepting multiple types of card payments wherever they are.

Businesses have hailed this type of technology as a game changer in enabling simpler, quicker payments on the go, and supporting cashflow. But no provider can rest on their laurels. For our part, from mid-year we will be extending FastPay's capability to eftpos transactions and introducing a new card reader so merchants can process transactions even faster.

These improvements are the result of feedback from customers on how we can make it even better.

Successful technology has to be the servant of its users. The challenge for businesses everywhere is to transcend technology with solutions that are universally accepted, intuitive, and that people will want to use every day.

Just a few years ago the idea of doing your everyday banking on a mobile phone was almost unimaginable. Yet today ANZ's goMoney banking app alone is used by 500,000 New Zealanders. By continuing to move beyond innovation to normal, we will very soon create a future where a mobile wallet is as ordinary as the leather one of today.

Fred Ohlsson is ANZ New Zealand's Managing Director, Retail & Business Banking.