Australian banking major Westpac is bringing new technology to all its branches in the country as part of its infrastructure transformation programme.

This programme has been designed to improve employee and customer experience and deliver efficiencies to the bank.

Westpac has launched ‘Software Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN)’ by collaborating with network partner nbn and technology partner Cisco.

The technology enables faster internet connection and improved capabilities in branches with high levels of security and reduces IT cost for the bank significantly, noted the bank.

As part of the programme, the government-owned nbn will roll out fibre network to all branches of Westpac.

Meanwhile, Cisco will support the physical rollout of SD-WAN on a secure platform, along with cloud management architecture.

This allows Westpac to have improved visibility of its network and all performance aspects.

So far, the SD-WAN has been deployed in 300 bank branches across NSW, ACT, Victoria and Queensland state in Australia.

Westpac head of secure network services Wayne Bonett said: “The rollout of this new technology in branches is an important part of our broader strategy to modernise our underlying infrastructure and consolidate legacy technology systems.

“We have already seen improvements in branches; with 5x faster mobile banking application downloads for customers, reduced transaction times and more reliable free Wi-Fi for customers.

“It has also helped with collaboration activities for our people, with improved video conference quality and faster direct access to cloud-hosted services like Microsoft Office 365.

“In addition, the technology gives Westpac the flexibility to change Retail Service Providers and adjust the number and bandwidth of NBN services to meet future needs.”

The ongoing rollout of SD-WAN is expected to be completed across Westpac’s entire branch network by the end of 2020.