Information Technology in Banking and Finance: A Case Study of Westpac

Running Head: Westpac

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Westpac
Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................2
Need of IT for Banking and Finance..................................................................................2
Importance of IT for business survival...............................................................................3
Requirement to apply IT in banking and finance...............................................................3
How IT is used by Banking and Finance...........................................................................4
Advantages of IT to Banking and Finance........................................................................4
Risks of IT to Banking and Finance...................................................................................4
Maintenance and Monitoring of IT.....................................................................................5
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................5
References.........................................................................................................................6
Information
Technology

2
Westpac
Introduction
With the ramification in technology and the need of the businesses to survive the
dynamic environment, it is important for any organization to integrate its business
process with Information technology. One such sector where the use of Information
Technology has been in demand is the Banking and Finance sector. Banking sector
have become one of the highly competitive sectors nowadays. To be able to sustain
and compete with the contemporaries, the banking industry is running for the latest
technologies. Banks are leveraging IT to improve the processes that can respond much
faster to the dynamics of a changing environment. But with growing demand of
technological tools, the threat of data breach and cyberattacks makes it vulnerable.
From the recent incidents, it is evident that cyberattacks has seen a surge in both
sophistication and frequency for all types of industries. One of the recent victims of such
attack was Westpac banking corporation Australia, wherein almost ten thousand of
Westpac customers were exposed to data breach. In this report, the analysis will be laid
on Westpac Banking and the need of information technology for Westpac’s business.
Need of IT for Banking and Finance
In the earlier days, when the technology was still limited to few industries, the banking
industry relied on more paper works and required manual intervention of people for
every small aspect of banking process. With the coming of 90s, banking sector
witnessed the tornado or technological evolution and all the banking process started
getting automated. Information Technology enables the implementation of techniques
that is more reliable and controlled in risks. It helps the banking sector to fully automate