Westpac finishes replanning its Unite tech transformation

Westpac has replanned its Unite technology simplification program, bringing forward some activity and investment while pushing the expected completion date into FY29.

Unite is the bank’s “business-led, technology-enabled transformation”, intended to consolidate systems and processes.

Chief executive Anthony Miller said the replanning was necessitated by a previous decision to consolidate to a single deposit ledger, rather than run two.

“Moving to a single deposit ledger meant we had to revisit about one-third of the initiatives to make sure that we addressed all impacts and all interdependencies,” Miller said during the bank’s full year results briefing.

“This additional planning delayed our timeline. 

“We expect completion where we are accruing all target benefits to extend from the end of FY28 into FY29”.

Miller added that Unite’s completion date – the end of September 2028 – had always been “arbitrary” and that the bank did not envision going far beyond that even with the re-planning.

“As a result of that re-planning, reflecting the decision to go to one ledger, it’s just worked out that we won’t have all of the benefits accruing by September 30 2028,” he said.

“It’s likely to be a few months in[to] FY29”.

Unite now has a full-time workforce of 1600 people focused on 10 work packages “ to ensure we manage interdependencies and challenges effectively”.

In the year just gone, Westpac has put $660 million into Unite.

“This was slightly above our guidance,” Miller said.

“This was because we saw an opportunity to get additional work done now, and so we’ve prioritised the resources to make that happen”.

The bank is anticipating an investment of between $850 million and $950 million in FY26 “as we go flat out on execution”.

“The program is expected to account for approximately 40 percent of annual investment spend in FY27 and FY28, before reducing in FY29,” Miller said.

By its nature, the majority of benefits from Unite are set to accrue towards the end of the program, but Miller was keen to highlight early victories.

“The nature of this program is we’re taking all of these customers on two other tech systems and platforms and migrating them onto one tech platform,” he said.

“[It’s] only when you switch those two [platforms] off and you eliminate all the products and processes that, if you will, have to be executed on those two platforms, do you start to fully realise the benefits - the cost to run, the cost to change.

“[That being said], our progress is starting to deliver improvements that are making banking simpler and more connected for our employees and our customers”.

Miller said one recent change enabled by Unite allows home loan customers to set up multiple offset accounts at no additional cost.

“This is a key feature requested by our customers,” he said, before adding that the bank had opened an additional 35,000 accounts since February.

The bank has 51 “initiatives” underway under the Unite umbrella program; most are classified as ‘green’ on a traffic-light system, although Miller said “a few” are red.

“We’re prioritising getting those back on track,” he said.

Westpac recorded a full-year net profit after tax of $7 billion, down two percent on the previous financial year.