How Westpac achieves absolute system to system integration through APIs

A conversation with Westpac’s Fran Cocksworth, Head of Workflow and Integration Services

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In May 2021, Westpac, Australia’s oldest bank, announced it was undergoing a digitally-driven 'reset.' As Westpac CEO, Peter King, explained in the company’s original statement, “We are strengthening out focus on costs and today have announced a three-year cost reset plan to set us up for being a more streamlined, simpler organisation with a stronger digital focus and smaller head office.” 

He also mentioned that APIs and cloud services would play a “massive role” adding, “The benefit of cloud is not only the variable costs, but more the software that's built on the cloud is what's called 'evergreen' so it upgrades itself regularly."

To gain more insight into how Westpacs was using iPaaS and other cloud integration technologies we invited Westpac’s own Fran Cocksworth, Head of Workflow and Integration Services, to present at the upcoming Cloud Integration Live free virtual event taking place March 29-30, 2022. To give you a taste of what you can expect to learn during Fran’s session, our Editor-In-Chief, Seth Adler, recently sat down with her for a brief Q&A the transcript of which is below. 

 


 

Seth Adler

So let’s just dive into it. Tell us about collating API integration layers.

 

Fran Cocksworth

Well, me, I'm a fan of absolute system to system integration through APIs. It's the most secure and strategic method of connecting two systems together. It's very hard to do, if you've got legacy systems that aren't API enabled, but I'm much more of a fan of that than robotics. Robotics has a place and a purpose but I think if you're going to invest your money, invest your money in reusable components, which we've got a marketplace of over 4,000 APIs where they are reused across the entire organization.

So what you want to be able to do is search for those nuggets that are reusable. Something like change of address, right? If I have an enterprise service, that's change of address, put it on a marketplace in the organization, make everyone aware of it and then use it every single time. Otherwise we're building 50 different change of address processes, right? 

You just want to have those reusable components where it delivers that service end-to-end. We can measure it, we can see the throughput of it. We can continue to uplift it and maintain it and scale it. 

 

Seth Adler

You bring up maintaining it and we've got maintaining software currency. Talk me through that.

 

Fran Cocksworth

Look, it's a real problem keeping up to date on software, and platforms. Especially if you are running them on premise, the whole value proposition of the cloud is take that pain away from me, please. The vendor is running the kit, all the environments, the resiliency, the stability. 

I, the customer, don't want to have to worry about any of this stuff. All I want is a service from you. 

When you are part of those cloud systems, essentially what you are getting is a regular upgrade. Now you do have to plan for how you consume those upgrades. They don't always come in a timeframe that suits an organization, but it is their job to keep them up to date. It is no longer a headache for me. The only headache I have is when I choose to accept them. So I never get out of time.

 

Seth Adler

You never get out of date because you've moved away from OPEX?

 

Fran Cocksworth

Correct. Absolutely. My OPEX model has shifted to a subscription of a service and the minute I stop paying for that service,it goes away. But all of those headaches have gone away. Otherwise the rest, the OPEX, it's my problem to keep up to date and software upgrades are really time consuming and expensive. Especially if you have to upgrade all the componentry underneath, it could be database platforms, or worse. It could be operating systems. And all of these things go out of life at different stages. And, if a vendor pulls something you are dependent upon, you have to suddenly pivot to something else. It's not always that easy. So go to cloud. That's the benefit.

 

 

 

 

Don't miss Fran Cocksworth's, Head of Workflow and Integration Services at Westpac, session at the Cloud Integration Live free virtual event taking place March 29-30, 2022.

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