Commonwealth Bank and Quantium Form Data J.V.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has formed a joint venture with customer data analytics firm Quantium, combining the former's transaction data with the latter's data science. The new business will be known as CommBank iQ and will begin trading in the second half of 2021.

Sydney-based Quantium, which is now fully-owned by the Woolworths Group, offers Q, a data science and artificial intelligence platform for analysis of brand, product andpromotional performance, helping users make better range and space decisions, identify high-priority shoppers and profile their behaviour. Q is also used to convert transactional data into customer profiles and audience insights, and to understand a patient's full suite of healthcare interventions.

The new JV will combine what CBA claims is Australia's largest pool of aggregated and de-identified transaction data with Quantium's data science capability. The new firm promises insights to help institutional clients deliver better products and services for their customers and stakeholders, while creating a suite of data-driven products to support and - where possible - automate decision-making. Both CBA and Quantium will contribute founding team members to the JV, with Quantium also bringing its big data tech stack.

Quantium CEO Adam Driussi describes CommBank iQ as a 'truly exceptional solution' that promises to solve challenging problems and create better products and services for Australians. CommBank iQ Andrew Hinchliff, CBA's Group Executive of Institutional Banking and Markets, adds: 'As Australia's biggest bank, we see more transactions than any other institution in the country. By working in partnership with Quantium, we can harness the power of this peerless dataset to help Australian governments, businesses, investors and NGOs predict and adapt to the changing needs and wants of their customers'.

Web sites: www.commbank.com.au and www.quantium.com .