Westpac signs deal with Microsoft to accelerate cloud strategy

Westpac has signed a five year strategic deal with Microsoft to help bolster the bank’s digital and multi-cloud strategy.

The partnership includes increased investment in Microsoft’s cloud computing service, Azure, which will help Westpac continue to modernise its technology environment and expand use of cloud-based systems.

It also involves training and education for Westpac engineers on Azure technologies through Microsoft’s Enterprise Skilling Initiative, which provides curated learning pathways matched to roles, and certification.

David Walker, CTO at Westpac Group said the bank is looking to significantly scale up its use of the cloud across the bank, especially with software-as-a-service partners to help deliver more digital-to-the-core experiences for customers.

“This includes areas such as digital, mortgages, business lending, our banking-as-a-service platform, artificial intelligence, and data,” he said.

 “This partnership will be valuable in enhancing our real-time data and insights capabilities, building on our Data Driven Experiences Platform which is currently being uplifted onto Azure’s evergreen cloud-native data platform-as-a-service.

“The new training and development opportunities will also provide benefits in terms of upskilling and driving innovation, and help our people become future-ready,” he added.

Westpac will look to leverage the ecosystem of services available on Azure to bring its application, data and artificial intelligence capabilities together in a more cohesive manner that can be scaled across the enterprise.

Steven Worrall, Managing Director, Microsoft Australia and New Zealand said, “Westpac has a clear vision for the future of banking – combining high performance, trusted and secure cloud-based platforms with a highly skilled workforce to allow iterative innovation that will ensure the bank stays at the leading edge of financial services.”

Worrall said Microsoft is delighted to help build the digital foundations for this and support Westpac to grow its learning culture and instil digital capabilities that keep it match-fit for the future of banking.