Westpac says AI halves St.George data warehouse migration cost
The bank expects around A$15 million in annual direct benefits from the migration, with the old warehouse scheduled for decommissioning in FY27.
By Quang Dinh
Westpac says using artificial intelligence to migrate St.George’s legacy data warehouse has brought the expected project cost to around A$35 million, against an initial A$70 million budget, while finishing more than two years earlier than expected.
Chief executive Anthony Miller outlined the savings at the bank’s annual results, after Westpac discussed the project at an investor event in September. He said AI accelerated the conversion of code, along with testing and documentation work.
Miller presented the migration as an example of AI’s role in Unite, Westpac’s technology simplification and transformation program. The data’s destination is Adapt, the bank’s Azure-based cloud platform for data and analytics.
Westpac expects the migration to generate around A$15 million a year in direct benefits. Miller said the bank expected to begin recognising benefits from FY27, which is also when it plans to decommission the old warehouse.
The bank also expects to apply the AI migration capability developed during the project to other migrations. Miller said the team’s tools, methods and experience could be used again, bringing further financial and delivery benefits.
