ATO awards IBM a $107m SBR platform contract

The ATO has awarded IBM a $107 million contract to support the ongoing development of the agency’s Standard Business Reporting (SBR) platform.

The three-year contract, which commenced this month, will see IBM provide support for and further develop the SBR channel built specifically by the ATO for the company.

This platform uses the IBM Sterling B2B Integrator, IBM MQ and IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale technologies to provide a secure channel for businesses to communicate directly with the agency.

It is used to support the delivery of services for businesses including Single Touch Payroll, JobKeeper and superannuation reporting.

In addition to support services, the contract will see the platform’s cloud-native capability used to support the bulk of the more than 1 billion transactions between the ATO and businesses or superannuation funds that take place each year.

IBM ANZ Managing Director Katrina Troughton said the company has plans for the future of the SBR platform.

“It’s our focus for the SBR platform to continue to support innovation and improve the current platform by enabling streamlined services to increase the resiliency and robustness of the SBR platform,” she said.

“IBM welcomes the opportunity to support the ATO and to continue to grow and build diverse teams that are working across all of our projects.”

She added that ensuring the continuation of streamlined and secure services such as JobKeeper will be critically important during the COVID-19 recovery stage.

“IBM is thrilled to have the opportunity to support the government’s economic stimulus agenda and pandemic response in such a critical yet practical way,” Troughton said.

The contract is the first signed by IBM Australia with a federal government agency under the newly updated Indigenous Procurement Policy, which mandates that at least 4% of employees who work on the project be of Indigenous background.

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