Westpac New Zealand will roll out private cloud infrastructure under a new five-year agreement that will see the bank migrate some of its critical systems across to IBM’s Highbrook, Auckland data centre.
Westpac’s interim CIO Jason Millett said the move to IBM’s private cloud would allow the bank to develop and test tools in a dedicated environment to speed up the deployment of online and mobile banking services.
“We are excited about the high quality of code that we will be putting into production, but also the speed in which we would be able to operate,” Millett said. “That would be a great outcome for our customers.”
Having a reliable technology environment that is up 24x7 and is available to our customers [around the clock] and supports our business processes is really important.
Westpac is striving to be New Zealand’s leading digital bank.
“Having a reliable technology environment that is up 24x7 and is available to our customers [around the clock] and supports our business processes is really important,” said Millett.
Millett said finding the right partner is crucial when organisations are undertaking transformation projects like this.
“It is important to understand that if you remain inwardly focused as a bank, you will end up with inwardly focused banking solutions.”
“If you get a partner who has a global reach, who has a global point of view – that partnership acts as an accelerator, it enables your own internal transformation.
“That is really what we are seeing with the work we are doing with IBM around big data and analytics in the next 24 months as we bed down the security and data management capabilities,” he said.
Westpac is also working with IBM to enhance online security with features such as managing identity and access through a single user ID.
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“What IBM do for us is they give access to their global networks and their way of thinking in [providing solutions] for clients across the world.”
“A good example of where the global positioning with IBM is going to help us is the technology company’s recent partnership with Apple. As a result of that, IBM is going to be working harder to develop IoS-based solutions.
“That can assist us and accelerate our ability to put our innovation and leading edge digital solutions in front of our customers,” he said.
IBM has prime responsibility for managing Westpac's key infrastructure services, under an agreement that was first signed in 2000.
In 2013, Westpac became one of the first clients of IBM New Zealand's Delivery Centre at Unitec in Auckland, employing post-graduate and undergraduate computer science students.
IBM New Zealand launched its hybrid cloud in March and said it would invest $1.2 billion in a network of data centres across the globe, including Australia.
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