AI-powered coding: National Australia Bank drives productivity in software development

As one of Australia’s largest banks, NAB employs over 3,000 developers across Australia, India, and Vietnam. Managing millions of lines of code across hundreds of applications is no easy task: ensuring that each piece of code meets rigorous security, compliance, and quality standards is an ongoing challenge.

With developers spending only about 2.7 days a week coding, the remainder of their time was being consumed by meetings, planning, and routine tasks such as maintaining legacy Java code and managing compliance. NAB needed a solution that could streamline coding processes and accelerate development cycles, allowing developers to focus on what matters most: delivering enhanced digital banking experiences to customers.

“We’re constantly looking for ways to make our teams more productive and our code more reliable,” says Steve Day, Chief Technology Officer at NAB. “The key is finding a way to reduce time spent on repetitive tasks, so developers can focus on creating value.” To address these challenges, NAB turned to Amazon Q Developer from Amazon Web Services (AWS). Designed specifically for software development, the generative AI-powered assistant automates repetitive coding tasks, updates older code to newer versions, and conducts compliance checks.

 “We were already using AWS, so the familiar tools made adoption easy and straightforward,” Steve explains. “We started using Amazon Q Developer to automate code updates and standardise compliance checks across our teams.” Amazon Q Developer integrates seamlessly into NAB’s existing developer ecosystem, enabling developers to work on building new, innovative products.

In a highly-regulated industry like banking, security is non-negotiable—banks handle vast amounts of sensitive financial data, including personal and account information. NAB needed a tool that could boost developer efficiency and code quality without compromising the security of its systems or the safety of customer data.

“That’s the one thing that we were not prepared to compromise on: the security of our customers’ information, the importance of looking after their money, was paramount,” Steve says. “The reason we chose Amazon Q Developer was primarily due to AWS’s security model.”

Amazon Q Developer benefits from the AWS’ advanced security features including encryption, access controls, and secure cloud infrastructure, ensuring that data remains protected throughout development. The platform’s ability to enforce consistent, high-quality coding practices across a geographically diverse team played a critical role in ensuring the security and compliance of NAB’s applications.

Steve says, “Amazon Q Developer enables us to go through the code, check for compliance, and really make sure that the code we’re deploying is as consistent and as safe as possible.”

At NAB, the results of implementing Amazon Q Developer were immediate: the organisation experienced an 18% productivity uplift, as time-consuming manual processes were replaced with instant AI-generated suggestions.

One of the most significant achievements was in updating legacy Java code for new versions. Where previously, this would have taken weeks to complete manually, Amazon Q Developer completed the task in just a few hours—allowing developers to focus on strategic, value-driven initiatives.

“Amazon Q Developer is more than just a single product; it has completely changed the way we develop code,” Steve says. “It was incredible to see dozens of applications uplifted in a couple of hours instead of weeks.”

Today, about 1,000 of NAB’s developers are using Amazon Q Developer, with plans to expand across the entire development team. As NAB integrates the solution even further into their development processes, including testing and compliance processes, they’ll continue building a faster, more efficient, and secure software delivery pipeline.
“It’s a journey, not a single switch,” Steve says. “Generative AI is just another evolution in technology. It’s freeing up our developers to focus on creative aspects of their work while the AI handles the routine tasks.”