Strategic Information System Proposal: Westpac Bank, HI5019 Assignment

This report analyzes the strategic information system of Westpac Bank, starting with an introduction to the bank and its critical success factors, objectives, and mission statement. It presents a formal organizational chart and analyzes the current system, including its online platform and business divisions. The report identifies specific control weaknesses, such as authentication issues and fraud, and proposes a new, improved system. The proposed system incorporates features like biometrics and integration of PLS with HLS for enhanced security and efficiency. The report also discusses technology platforms, potential security risks, and accounting controls for the new system, concluding with recommendations for implementation. The assignment fulfills the requirements of the HI5019 Strategic Information Systems course, emphasizing practical application of information systems in a real-world business context.

Running Head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK
Strategic information system
September 29
2018
Westpac Bank

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 1
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Brief introduction of Westpac Bank......................................................................................2
Critical success factor and primary objectives of Westpac....................................................2
Information helpful in achieving the objectives.....................................................................3
The mission statement for the client......................................................................................4
Formal organization chart for Westpac bank.............................................................................4
Brief analysis of Westpac bank..................................................................................................4
Current system of Westpac bank of Australia........................................................................4
Identification of specific control weaknesses within the Westpac Bank of Australia...........6
New improved system for the Westpac Bank............................................................................7
Primary features of the new system.......................................................................................7
Relevance to the new advanced technology...........................................................................9
Other requirements...................................................................................................................10
Technology platforms for the new system...........................................................................10
Potential security risks for the banking system of Westpac bank........................................11
Accounting controls over the new banking system..............................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................14

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 2
Introduction
Brief introduction of Westpac Bank
Westpac Banking Corporation is an Australia based bank and other financial services,
provider. This organization is commonly known as Westpac Bank. Company headquarter is
located at 275 Kent St, Sydney, New South Wales. Name of the bank Westpac is a
Portmanteau of Western and Pacific. Bank is reported in the list of Australia’s “Big Four”
Banks. As per 2018, the bank has around 4 million customers served by almost 40,000
employees (Westpac, 2018c).
Critical success factor and primary objectives of Westpac
The factors influencing the success of an organization or business are varied from business to
business and often beyond the control of entrepreneurs. However, there are some factors that
help the organization to sustainable growth in the competitive economic market. Westpac
bank also identifies its critical success factors and categorized into three different categories
like internal, external, and community factors (Westpac, 2014a).
Internal
 Attitude: confidence of the bank to be innovative as well as taking risks.
 Purpose: Bank has clarity about its enterprise objectives.
External
 Prime locations of the bank.
 Easy access to the economic market.
 Favourable economic conditions and regulatory environment.
 Its efficient government policies

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 3
Community
 It has separated politics and business.
 Its network and partnerships in the communities.
 Independent dispute resolution policies.
2013 Accessibility Action plan of the bank was based on the theme of “Prosper and Grow”,
now in order to see the change that company wants to see, the bank has made its commitment
in the following areas for the accessibility action plan of 2017-2020:
 Creating an inclusive workplace that ensures that people leading the organization are
equipped and committed to creating a fulfilling career for all its employees.
 Growing the financial independence of the organization.
 Embedding the accessibility of organization in banking products and services.
 Accessible communication and communities.
Information helpful in achieving the objectives
Westpac bank would require for re-designing its existing infrastructure of the organization to
build a structure that will help to provide essential skills and training to its new employees.
Use of creative and strategic designs for the new strategy will be needed for the development
of an environment suitable for the training and career development of new or un-experienced
employees. For financial independency organization will need more assets than a liability in
term of its financial growth. Also to embedding the accessibility of banking products and
services it is essential to train its employees for such practices, for this bank can rely on its
leadership programs to train its employees.

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 4
The mission statement for the client
In the context of Westpac bank, as per the organization’s vision-mission statement is given as
To help the organization’s customers, communities, and people to prosper and grow along
with the bank making it one of the world’s great services (Westpac, 2018b).
Formal organization chart for Westpac bank
(Fig 1: Organizational Chart of Westpac Bank of Australia)
Brief analysis of Westpac bank
Current system of Westpac bank of Australia
Information systems or other IT components of banking organizations have a determining
role for its internal environment along with a significant level of relations with its external
environment. The organization has “Corporate Online” as its online platform where
customers can view, manage and track their accounts. This service is specially designed for
the corporate and business customers from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinean, and
Fijian. For the successful organization, it is critically essential to stay connected with their

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 5
customers. Corporate online portal of the bank is designed to provide the flexibility and a
secured platform giving a full control to its customer’s banking activities. Organization’s
business structure comprises of five divisions:
Consumer Bank: This division is responsible for organizations sales and services to the
customers.
Business Bank: This division takes care of the company sales and services to the SMEs,
Micro, and Other commercial business customers. This individual division makes a business
of about $150 million.
BT Financial group Australia: This division is responsible for the organization’s manufacture
and distribution of the investments.
Westpac Institutional Bank: This division delivers a broad range of products and services to
the commercial business customers with connections to Australia and New Zealand.
Westpac New Zealand: This is designed to take care of the overall business of the company
in New Zealand.
In the rising technical world, the bank has implemented an integrated information technology
in its Corporate Online system. Along with this bank has implemented several IT services to
its daily operations within the organization. Since daily operations of the bank are very
cautious to the customer's bank give a special consideration to its security implementations
regarding different IT solutions. Bank has been regarded as one of the most advanced banks
of Australia. This is because of its advanced technical aspects. Apart from this, mobile
banking is one of the most successful implementations of technology for the bank. This
system is linked to its Corporate Online system or this is the part of Corporate Online system.

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 6
This would help the bank in terms of its business by making its customers able to operate
their bank account activities so easily.
Identification of specific control weaknesses within the Westpac Bank of Australia
With the implementation of online systems like corporate online, the bank has to maintain a
high-security form to protect the digital operations of the customer. For the bank one of the
major problems is meeting the authentication standards. For this bank follows different
mechanisms for security concerns within the digital operation of banking services (Chileshe,
and John Kikwasi, 2014). In order to avail the mobility facility of baking operation with its
mobile banking, the customer would use this facility in any form at any place. With this
facility provided by the Westpac Bank, its customer can perform their banking operations
like, fund transfer, and many more with the help of their user-friendly mobile banking service
(Lee, Thomas, and Baskerville, 2015). This facility will also make them able to check their
available balance, their transactions, and other services for making payments and all
(Martins, Oliveira, and Popovič, 2014).
There have been found various cases of forgery and hacks in the recent times. This makes it
more important for the bank to secure their online services. If customers get the feeling of
security concerns they will withdraw their business from the bank. This will impact the
organization’s business very badly. This issue may seem to be casual but security concerns of
the bank are the most powerful factor that plays an important role in its success and failure.
Customers in the banking sector are seeking for the security of their assets and in such
environment, security breach can cause a huge loss to the bank. Security ensuring
mechanisms of the bank are facing different issues in the system. Attacks from unauthentic
users are the most dangerous issue that bank is facing in the recent time. Certainly, this issue
has been regarded as the top most priority of the bank in terms of ensuring the security.

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 7
Another weakness of the bank is its increasing number of increasing frauds in the recent
times. Organization’s online services are facing such issues like fraud and hacks from digital
thieves. To maintain the high profile of bank in such environment or circumstances is
creating an issue in bank’s digital services. The bank is receiving complaints from customers
regarding frauds through different mediums like SMS, E-mail, Phone Scam Alert, and
Malicious alerts to the customer. In such issues bank is not capable of doing anything to
resolve. This is making a serious issue for the bank to maintain its customers’ faith in their
services. Some other issues that are to be faced by banking organization due to their digital
services are found in the organization.
(Fig 2: Data Flow Diagram of the Systems of Westpac Bank of Australia)
New improved system for the Westpac Bank
Primary features of the new system
In the banking sector, security of banking services like digital or online banking is to mmost
priority of any bank. In the recent times, apart from the typical banking strategies,
digitalization of the banking services is rising rapidly (Xiong, and Li, 2017). These
technology implementations in the banking sector are showing tremendous improvements in
the banking services as well as in their operations. Along with this ease of doing business,

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 8
organizations are also facing several security issues as defined above (Ponte, Carvajal-
Trujillo, and Escobar-Rodríguez, 2015). There are some really improved systems like
Biometrics, Integration of PLS with HLS standards, and upgraded organization structure as
well as mainframe system of the organization operational activities to DB2 and UNIX
(Nazareth, and Choi, 2015).
Westpac Bank can adapt an extreme level of consumer faith in their service by providing
services like biometric authentications for online services. This implementation will surely
help the organization to build a high-level trust of customers with their bank. Also, the
method of using biometrics will reveal the physical behavior of customers. Since the
biometric information of an individual is different from others, therefore, it will be very
useful for the banking system. This use of a unique identity for security authentication will be
very difficult to hack or copy in frauds. This uniqueness is genetic that cannot be modified or
copied from anyone. Hence, for the security concern of bank, it is suggested to use the
biometric user authentication for digital services of the Westpac Bank. Other services that
Westpac bank can include in its security system are hand use recognition, face expression
recognition, and voice recognition of customers. There are various researches in this field
which show that these are the most successful technologies for security purpose (Devadevan,
2013).
In order to secure the digital services of Westpac bank, integration of PLS with HLS would
be most beneficial. PLS interface operates on non-supportable platforms that are not enough
good for banking operations. In this interface, the bank has to perform the online data entry
for every loan application based on the PLS system. This introduces an extra cost to the bank
and affects the financial expenditures. Therefore, in order to reduce the cost, improve the
functionality level of bank operations, and to optimize this level of functionality, Westpac
bank should integrate its PLS system with the HLS system. With this integration of PLS and

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 9
HLS, Westpac bank would be successful; in excelling its customer services with the
improved IT services. IT infrastructure of Westpac bank has a successful history in terms of
providing good services to the customers associated with the organization. And then such
implementation of such improvements in the IT infrastructure of the organization will help in
making a fast decision of application approvals, funds, differentiation between bigger
products and ultimately improve the pace of approving applications.
Westpac bank has higher form of IT structure that is based on different IT systems. With the
use of upgraded technology in its system, the bank must upgrade the system. For this up
gradation, the bank must use high level operating systems like UNIX and DB2 instead of its
existing version of Windows OS. With the up-gradation, the bank would feel safe to protect
its online services like online banking and mobile banking. Being the most critical issue of a
security breach, this change in the mainframe of IT structure will reduce most of the issues.
Also, with this upgraded mainframe of IT system bank will be able to enhance the overall
efficiency of the banking operations within the organization and will also help in reducing the
cost of operations significantly (Vasilakos, Li, Simon, and You, 2015).
Along with this restructuring of IT systems, Westpac bank should implement the automation
technology in some of its organizational operations to increase the security level, monitor the
organizations existing IT systems, and enabling the organization to higher processing speed
in some of the technical tasks like filtration of forms and other operations.
Relevance to the new advanced technology
This new system can be classified under the EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) system. This
system is another form of interchanging the information between authorities within the
organization. in order to process the standardised information in a particular fformat, this
system will help a lot to the Westpac bank. Implementation of this system will help the

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 10
organization to spread vital information to its business partners of commercial customers
along with reducing the risk of confidentiality (Erkan, and Evans, 2016). This is because the
data shared would be in an electronically secured format. This will help the organization to
keep their data safe without losing it in any fraud or thread. Mainly data leakages occur at the
time of data transfer, therefore, transferring the data in an electronic format will keep the data
safe while transferring from one system to another (Jain, Keneley, and Thomson, 2015).
This use of EDI system within the organization’s existing system would be helpful for the
new information system to support the efficiency of organization with higher efficiency of
workflow, and streaming various processes at a time related to the document transfer. This
would save a significant amount of time for the organization. In this way, the banking
operations will function faster and the saved time can be utilized to prepare other business
strategies for the business sustainability. Also, the process of EDI is very cost effective,
therefore, implementation of the EDI system will also make the system cost-effective (Fenna,
2013).
Other requirements
Technology platforms for the new system
Online or digital banking is one among the services provided by most of the organization in
the banking sector. This service allows their customers to interact with their bank activities
directly and give an access to operate their bank activities with mobility (Mata, et al., 2015).
Westpac banking is also providing the same services to enhance the customer satisfaction to
fulfill their expectations. Such online systems are developed to enhance the efficiency of the
banking process and make their services easy to use (Henckel, and McKibbin, 2017).

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM: WESTPAC BANK 11
In the technical world, there are various platforms on which different operating systems can
be used by banks to provide such services. Platforms like HTML5, Javascript, and CSS have
been used by banks with a huge interest. These platforms have been used to develop faster
process and high-level systems to operate other IT systems. There are many systems
developed and successfully (Jiménez, Lopez, and Saurina, 2013).
List of financial and nonfinancial data attributes for each entity
The process of accounting through computerised system involves different financial and non-
financial attributes like storing and retrieving the data of accounting transactions. In this
manner the ER diagram of new system will contain the following attributes:
Data processing cycle: Data processing involves a complete practice of collecting, storing,
relating, analysing, and computing the data. This whole process forms a cycle that is called
data processing cycle. This cycle involve the necessary steps of capturing, processing and
computing the data.
Designing database for accounting: In accounting, both the computerised and computer
based AIS requires a definite data structure that has to be design with maximum efficiency.
These databases are used to store the customer information data for future use.
Entity relationship (ER) model: This model is commonly used in database-oriented
applications. Westpac bank will use this model in its new information system. This will help
the organization to monitors its entities on periodic basis.