Westpac maps out IT priorities

Bob McKinnon, chief information officer of Westpac, mapped out some of the bank's technology planning priorities in an interview with the Financial Review.

McKinnon followed up on themes addressed by his boss (Westpac CEO Gail Kelly) at the bank's profit briefing earlier this month.

Westpac's priorities, McKinnon told the newspaper, are to adopt a new group-wide internet banking platform. This will be implemented first at Westpac's retail bank, which uses an older system than St George.

The bank will then migrate business banking and corporate banking systems onto the new platform. The vendor for this system is not clear, and nor is it clear that Westpac has selected a vendor.

The bank will move St George and Bank of South Australia customers onto the new internet banking platform "over time", McKinnon said.

He confirmed that Westpac will get a new teller system and that this will be the St George teller system.

ZDNet reported last week that Westpac was planning to migrate its core banking system to the CSC Hogan platform used by St George.

Gail Kelly had told the half-year profit briefing this month that Westpac was likely to use St George's banking systems more extensively than original planning envisaged.

The bank is also weighing up the merits of each customer relationship management system, the Financial Review reported, though both run on Oracle platforms.

McKinnon also told the newspaper that the bank was yet to decide terms for any fresh supply agreement for core IT system support. IBM Australia is the present vendor, with the contract due for renewal next year.

Westpac is also looking for a new supplier for its mortgage processing operations, with the supply contract with the EDS-run centre in Adelaide also due for renewal.