Westpac's update yesterday on the progress of its year-old merger with St George Bank and its business transformation included presentations by a number of the bank's executive team, but notably absent was Bob McKinnon, whose technology group is the engine for all the changes within the bank.While the bank refreshed some high level financial data on, for example, "expense synergies" from the profit briefing (held only weeks ago) there was scant reference to any timelines or projected dates for the considerable body of work being undertaken to replace and refresh the dual systems of the two banks.There was a new slide in the investor briefing on the integration spending to date, said to be $392 million from the $700 million "total spend" disclosed as the budget for the task before, by management.Some of this spending - and insiders say a lot of spending - is pre-payments to contractors and consultants, and also for equipment - to help establish the appearance of progress in the merger.Actual progress is proceeding at a much slower pace as the management team and their subordinates sift through their options and endeavour to generate a realistic work program.There is plenty of technology improvement under way, a lot of it related to core processing rather than all that much to do with tasks forced upon the bank by the takeover of St George.So Brad Cooper, the "chief transformation officer" of Westpac, led off his section of the investor briefing by referring to improvements in system stability. He was probably aware, but did not mention, that Westpac's internet banking service was offline for some time yesterday.Cooper, and his boss, the bank's managing director Gail Kelly, both talked of the "five-year strategy" and "detailed five-year plan now in place".This is, of course, three years beyond the claimed "total spend" on integration featured in the slide pack yesterday.Specific tasks mentioned yesterday included the consolidation of the general ledger of the two banks, as well as other support systems that handle payroll. The bank is also now operating under one support system for treasury and risk.Other projects under way include increasing the capacity of data centres, a new deposit platform (using the St George version of the Hogan system, one of the most common banking platforms in the world), a common service desktop, an upgraded internet banking platform (which is really business as usual in a fast changing channel), and a couple of new payments platforms.The investments do produce tangible improvements to the business.Westpac has largely automated transaction account opening, making the process quicker and more streamlined. It has also lifted the number of cash management products sold to each business customer to four from two following process simplification.It also now takes only three days to finalise the legal paperwork on a new loan, down from five days previously.While technology topics took a back seat, management was keen, as usual, to talk about their customer focus.There were many references to the bank's high rate of customer advocacy and net promoter scores.