With 1.3 million customers, 6000 staff, 200 branches and offices across the country, Westpac NZ is the country’s largest full service bank. Westpac currently has a financial relationship with more than one in three New Zealanders – and is also the leading provider of financial services to New Zealand’s small to medium business sector.

The challenge

With numbers like these the bank has had to maintain a track record of implementing new technology, both to stay ahead of its competitors and to offer increased levels of service to its customers. In April 2000 it was one of the pioneers of online banking and by November 2002 more than 250,000 customers had registered for online banking – with 54,564 logins on a single day.

In late 2001, however, Westpac NZ faced a significant challenge – the roll out of a new broadband network to its corporate offices and branches around the country, while at the same time offering as little disruption to its business as possible.

The primary underlying objective of the “Network Transformation Project” was to bring Westpac NZ in line with the overall corporate IT strategy of its Australian parent, the Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC), which was seeking to deploy IP network capable applications across all of its operations.

A critical component of this strategy involved the deployment of a flexible, scalable infrastructure that would allow new business/technology architectures and applications to be rapidly developed, deployed, retired and modified. Once implemented, this network would enable WBC to leverage its current investments in technology and infrastructure, whilst facilitating the transition to emerging business initiatives. Crucially, network capacity and reach could not be allowed to become constraining factors in the introduction of new business services.

Westpac NZ awarded the project to a consortium comprising IBM GSA and Telstra (NZ). However, for effective implementation at a local level, Telstra required a partner that could provide the critical project management and technical leadership in the design and deployment of this large and complex project. IBM was selected based on its experience successfully implementing similar large scale projects – and its proven ability to deliver to contracted service levels.

The solution

On behalf of Telstra and IBM GSA, IBM built and deployed the new broadband network encompassing all of Westpac NZ sites – 44 corporate offices and more than 200 branches across the country. The network is based on an end-to-end Cisco routing and switching infrastructure providing IP convergence to all applications within Westpac’s technology infrastructure. The project also included migration of legacy applications and protocols to enable them to traverse the IP-only broadband network.

A key feature of the network was the implementation of Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) for corporate offices in Auckland and Wellington, utilising Cisco’s Dynamic Packet Transport (DPT) protocol over dark fibre (see below). DPT combines the bandwidth efficient and services rich capabilities of IP routing with the bandwidth-rich, self-healing capabilities of fibre ring architectures, allowing more efficient use of bandwidth and lower overall cost of ownership. Significantly, this was the first New Zealand deployment of DPT.

The bottom line

Using sound project management methodology, IBM was able to deliver to project specification with little disruption to business. “The project manager was outstanding,” confirms Telstra project director Geoff Lineham. By leveraging consistent Cisco infrastructure throughout the network, Westpac has made significant ongoing support savings, reduced the number of network equipment suppliers, and simplified network management. With a high capacity broadband network, the bank now has a robust, flexible, future-proof network infrastructure, supporting both its current business requirements and the future roll-out of new business applications.

The project has also ensured that Westpac NZ complies fully with the corporate IT standards laid down by WBC, ensuring that it can fully leverage its international investment in IT equipment and services.

September 2003