Westpac will tap into advanced AWS capabilities like machine learning, compute, and data analytics, to further accelerate the bank’s digital transformation, drive cost efficiencies, and personalise its banking applications.

Westpac group chief technology officer, David Walker, says the investment is a major step forward in Westpac’s technology transformation journey and will provide its engineers with more choice and flexibility in the delivery of cloud-based services for conversational AI, Banking-as-a-Service, and institutional transactions.

“We first started working with AWS in 2015 to host our websites and in that time we’ve had over 72 months of uninterrupted uptime which is a game-changer for our systems and our customers,” he says. “We’ve also made strong progress scaling up the use of cloud services over the past year which has driven this expanded collaboration with AWS."

Over the past year, Westpac has invested in conversational AI firm Kasisto, struck a deal with 10x Banking to build a new institutional banking platform, and appointed its first BaaS chief.

Under the new agreement, Westpac employees will also be able to access accredited AWS training courses including the new AWS Industry Quest: Financial Services, an interactive learning experience that teaches staff how to build cloud solutions for the financial services industry.

“Our transformation is underpinned by great talent, so it’s a priority to ensure upskilling opportunities were available across specialty areas like cloud, AI, and data to ensure a strong future pipeline of technology talent,” says Walker. “We’re looking forward to learning the latest cloud skills from AWS to keep ourselves at the forefront as digital banking leaders.”

The agreement with Westpac is the second among the Big Four Australian banks that AWS has clinched in the past three months. In November, National Australia Bank signed a multi-million dollar, long-term deal with Amazon to accelerate the migration of critical workloads to the cloud.

Finextra has recently launched the inaugural Financial Cloud Summit, scheduled to take place on 2 March 2023. For more information and to register for this event, please visit the event page here.