Westpac chooses Fiserv for online revamp
Financial systems specialist Fiserv has announced that its software has been chosen to power Westpac's online transformation program.
(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)
Westpac will be implementing Fiserv's Corillian Online and Voyager banking systems to serve customers across its Westpac, St George and BankSA brands.
Fiserv and Westpac Group will work together on the design, which will allow customers to interact with the bank online (fixed or mobile) via a multi-lingual, customisable interface. Fiserv said that it would establish a "centre of excellence" in Sydney for senior strategists and developers to support the program.
According to Fiserv, one of the factors that resulted in Westpac choosing Corillian and Voyager was that both were built on a Microsoft foundation. "This simplifies the ongoing implementation of new online-banking functionalities and facilitates channel integration," the company said.
Westpac Group executive technology Bob McKinnon said that the bank had wanted a unique online banking service.
"Today we serve more than 2 million active online customers and expect this channel to continue to grow. To meet these needs across all customers, we have found a visionary yet proven financial application partner with the best-in-class platform. Fiserv will be a strategic partner as we lay the foundation for the future needs of our multi-branded online banking solution," McKinnon said in a statement.
Fiserv established a business relationship with Westpac in 1990 for account processing, provision of fraud prevention systems and cheque processing, according to the financial systems specialist.
Westpac is in the midst of overhauling its computing systems, having announced a $349 million spend to accomplish IT integration with St George, which it acquired in 2008.
Last year Westpac finished the first stage of the transformation. This involved the consolidation of the banks onto one general ledger for treasury and payroll, and had formed a technology strategy for the next five years. It had spent over $100 million from its technology transformation kitty, but still had $203 million to go.
It decided earlier this year that it would migrate to the Hogan platform, already used by St George, for its deposits. This followed prior decisions to migrate Westpac to St George's teller platform, HR and CRM systems: Spider, HR Express and Firefly. The finance and treasury systems used for the consolidation are, however, from Westpac.
Meanwhile, other banks are also ramping up technology spending. Commonwealth Bank of Australia and National Australia Bank are both undergoing core banking modernisations.