AIB is closing out a three-year strategic cycle focused on lifting its digital, data and AI literacy across the business. Graham Fagan, the bank's Group Chief Operating Officer and Group Chief Technology Officer, explains how a relentless focus on trust, security and reliability underpins everything from its 99.99% system availability to the launch of its redesigned mobile banking app.
Laying the Foundations for the Next Decade
When Graham Fagan stepped into the Group CTO role in 2023, generative AI was not yet a top industry priority. Since then he has taken on the combined role of Group COO, guiding AIB through a period of rapid technological change that required constant adaptation of its roadmap.
Fagan describes the period as consequential for the bank, calling it a foundational stretch for the decade ahead as the organisation worked new capabilities like AI into its strategy in real time.
Trust and Infrastructure: Job Zero
As a systemically important European bank serving 3.4 million customers, AIB treats security and service as its top priority. That discipline shows up in the numbers: the bank achieved 99.99% system availability last year, a track record Fagan credits to strong architectural planning.
For Fagan, reliability has become the true differentiator in digital-first banking, where availability can never be taken for granted no matter how far the underlying technology advances.
"Trust is the new user experience — availability cannot be taken for granted in the volatile world we operate in."— Graham Fagan, Group COO / Group CTO, AIB
The Evolution of the AIB Mobile App
AIB has launched its most significant mobile banking overhaul in more than a decade. The redesign responds to a gap the bank's own research uncovered: while 76% of Irish adults check their banking app multiple times a week, nearly half rarely use it to gain real financial insight.
The new app runs on a digital engagement platform built with security embedded from the ground up, and is designed to personalise customer experiences while keeping friction to a minimum — visible, reassuring security rather than layers of extra steps.
Managing the Consumer AI Wave
Unlike earlier enterprise technologies, AI is already deeply embedded in people's personal lives, meaning employees arrive with their own expectations and opinions about the tools. To manage this, AIB's Centre of Excellence acts as a guiding coordinator rather than a bureaucratic gatekeeper, helping the bank safely test, learn and align on emerging technology such as code refactoring.