Westpac will boost its investment spending in a bid to increase customer numbers by one million over the next two years and to increase the number of products per customer. The bank has also committed to maintaining a return equity above 15 per cent and to getting its cost-to-income ratio below 40 per cent.Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer told analysts at an investor briefing yesterday that the bulk of a 20 per cent increase in investment spending, which will take the annual budget to around A$1.3 billion, will be used to fund an IT infrastructure overhaul and create a new "Customer Service Hub".To offset the increased spend the bank will target higher productivity savings. Over the past six years the average saving from efficiency programs has been $221 million a year but under a new program the bank will aim for a 20 per cent "productivity uplift" with savings of around $270 million a year.Expense growth will be limited to two per cent to three per cent a year and the cost-to-income ratio, which was 42.5 per cent in the May half-year, will fall below 40 per cent by 2017/18.Hartzer said the group's ultimate goal was to be "one of the world's great service companies."The bank will maintain its focus on the Australia and New Zealand markets, with growth in Asia limited to assisting customers in core markets with regional trade, investment and other activities.Hartzer said that, in framing its strategy, the bank focused on customer demand for higher levels of service, the changes technology was making to the competitive landscape and the demands fromof regulators that banks put customers' interests first.He said the bank had been successful with some of its front-end service developments, such as its new mobile banking service Westpac Live and the LOLA business customer loan pre-approval system LOLA.However, to continue to innovate the bank must make its IT infrastructure more efficient and flexible. The bank is retaining its multi-brand strategy and any reduction in branch numbers will be small, despite recent calls from analysts for a big cull.Hartzer said the bank would achieve branch efficiencies by using systems such as videoconferencing that would allow it to locate its branches in smaller spaces. New branches will be 25 per cent to 30 per cent smaller than current ones.