Westpac(MIS100 2010)

By Jess Meyer | Thursday, May 27 2010

2009 ranking: 17

Senior IS executive: Ross Stephenson, CIO
Reports to: David Boyes, general manager customer and technology services
Size of IS shop: 271

PCs: 5361
Mobile PCs: 994
Terminals: 700
Hand-held devices: 1450
Total screens: 8505

Industry: Finance and insurance
PC environment: Toshiba, HP, Windows XP, Lenovo
Server environment: IBM, Sun, Tandem, AIX, Windows 2003
DBMS: DB2, Oracle, SQL, Sybase
Address: 188 Quay Street, Auckland
Website: www.westpac.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Continuity and compliance projects; CHIP card; online banking functionality; extending Origination platform.

Westpac New Zealand is aiming to bring bankers closer to customers, opening 10 new branches this year, hiring more than 100 new business bankers in customer facing roles and investing in the skills and expertise of its teams in the company’s two call centres around New Zealand. Technology is a key enabler of the bank’s strategy and this means delivering innovative solutions to support a growing business. Already this year technology has delivered new internet banking functionality, CRM software for business banking, as well as new ATMs and coin recycling units for the retail network.

Westpac CIO Ross Stephenson, who has been in his current role for a year, says the challenge involved is in getting the balance right. Stephenson says the banks IT team has made excellent progress in the past few years to increase the stability and continuity of its systems.

Also on the horizon is further online functionality to increase customer self-service and extending Westpac’s proprietary lending platform to deliver end to end origination for business banking needs. CHIP cards are set to replace magstripe cards, delivering customers more security. With stage two of Westpac’s new head office in Britomart Auckland to be completed in 2011, the technology team is also looking into unified communications deployment and new wireless and mobility solutions.

Early 2010 saw the launch of a multimillion dollar agreement between Westpac and technology services company NCR, which will see 80 percent of the bank’s network — more than 400 devices — replaced by next generation NCR SelfServ ATMs by mid-year.