Woo, finally!! (Shop before it drops! ) -- The Perth Mint will soon be upgrading our business systems and launching a brand new website. To enable this upgrade our websites and business systems, including accounts will be temporarily unavailable. Important dates/times: 2:00pm Friday 26 November 2021 – existing website and business systems become unavailable. 8:00am Tuesday 30 November 2021 – new website and business systems fully restored. [All times Australian Western Standard Time – UTC+8] This is a final reminder that from 2.00pm Friday 26 November 2021 until 8.00am Tuesday 30 November 2021, The Perth Mint websites and associated business systems will be unavailable while we undertake scheduled updates. Our Customer Care teams look forward to assisting you with your enquiries on 30 November when our services are once again fully functional. What does this mean for me? During the upgrade period, the following online (and/or telephone-operated) accounts will be temporarily unavailable: Bullion coins and bars (perthmintbullion.com) Collector coins, gifts and jewellery (perthmint.com) Depository online (perthmint.com/storage) GoldPass mobile app The Perth Mint Shop and bullion desk will also be closed while we simultaneously upgrade our business systems.
Yea it's not grand is it... too "wordy", and there's nothing in bullion to buy either silver or gold.
Copied as it was behind paywall.. Ex-Perth Mint chief executive Richard Hayes left the government-owned gold refiner after it burnt through $100 million of taxpayers’ money in a dysfunctional technology upgrade project that is now six years overdue with the cost blowouts buried within the organisation’s accounts. Mr Hayes, who signed on for another five-year contract with the Perth Mint last November, resigned suddenly on October 13 citing health reasons, with employees told he would leave the gold refiner in April next year. But an investigation by The Australian Financial Review can reveal Mr Hayes left the Mint after a board meeting on October 17, alongside chief investment officer Brad Wearn who only re-joined the Perth Mint in August. Mr Wearn was previously an employee of the Perth Mint, and his appointment to CIO marked the sixth change to the head of the IT department over the last six years. Perth Mint director John Collins, former chief of the WA Treasury Corporation, is temporarily acting as CEO. It is believed he is working two days a week. The Perth Mint did not respond to questions. The new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, developed to run financial accounting and metal accounts, was given the green light in 2014, with a $16 million budget and an 18 to 24-month timeline. The project cost has now ballooned to more than $100 million. Within the Perth Mint annual reports, the Financial Review can reveal the company classified the software upgrade as an intangible asset, capitalised some of it and amortised the rest over the six-year period. Systems crashed Mr Hayes’ abrupt departure comes after questions were put to the Gold Corporation, the parent company of the Perth Mint, during a West Australian Senate estimates session in September regarding the software project. According to insiders, there are 80 staff and contractors working on the project, with Mr Hayes providing oversight during his tenure, alongside a steering committee made up of board members. PwC is the contracted project manager and Empire IT Services and Churchill’s, where Mr Wearn was also previously employed, are also independently overseeing the project. According to documents seen by the Financial Review, the ERP system went live at the end of November but crashed the Perth Mint’s systems, which were offline for at least 24 hours, restricting the Mint’s capacity to accept, dispatch or check stock levels. Mr Hayes has been the chief executive of the Perth Mint for seven years, and helmed the government-owned entity throughout revelations last year that the Mint was unwittingly buying up to $200 million of “conflict gold” annually from a company run by a convicted killer in Papua New Guinea, breaching its global accreditation and the company’s own supply chain policies. At the time, West Australian Premier Mark McGowan ordered an “urgent review” of the Mint’s processes. Ultimately, the Mint was not stripped of its accreditation by The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), but Mr Hayes was also embroiled in another scandal after senior staff members raised concerns they were facing pressure over hiring decisions and procurement contracts in 2017. The Mint was then the subject of inquiries by the WA Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC). “Of all the things the Mint has gone through over the last few years, it’s surprising to think a software blowout is the thing that has toppled Hayes,” one ex-employee who worked with the executive team for many years told the Financial Review on the condition of anonymity.
New Website (is so crap) the old site was way better - they are more interested in selling paper than precious metals. Took the State Government 6years and $100m to figure out something is wrong. Someone’s been taking the piss. What a joke.
just get the Chinese system on the cheap, like 100k no risk arm or leg they got billions of customers and users, so reliable LOL
Holy shit they have added TLS to their bullion sales. Absolutely shocked that someone actually thought about security.
I can't get my head around $16m, let alone $100m. They had, up until weeks ago, a bullion website (perthmintbullion) with major security issues not least no security certificate. 80 contractors working on the backend? BS. The WA government might want to quietly do an audit.
I wouldn't let the WA Govt audit Perth Mint. Perth Mint reports to the WA Treasurer (who is also Premier) and the Office of the Auditor General WA reports to the WA Treasurer (aka Premier)...so no hard facts or truth are going to come from that....
Also I would love to know who the suppliers and consultants were, they mentioned PWC in the article. This is usually a source of ridiculous cost increases. I was also thinking that government has numerous IT departments and projects, they and could easily have got another department to audit this project each year to keep on top of it. Where is the money?
PWC have been totally screwing Perth Mint for years. Whether there was an internal acceptance of that I don't know. They were very unhelpful whenever I was working with them in the Perth Mint and GST context.
